End of an era

Gavin McFarlane of Temple Chambers Cardiff

Fraud investigators and prosecuting lawyers at HM Customs and Excise saw their troubles deepen almost immediately after Mr Justice Butterfield’s report on the collapse of the London City Bond cases was published last summer. The judge was highly critical but concluded that the failings could be attributed to incompetence rather than deliberate incitement or persuasion by officials to commit excise fraud.