Serco tagging trial falls through after SFO declines to offer evidence Serco tagging trial falls through after SFO declines to offer evidence
Two former Serco executives have been cleared of defrauding the Ministry of Justice after the SFO declined to offer evidence.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) brought claims against Nicholas Woods and Simon Marshall, who were accused of “defrauding the taxpayer” by concealing £12m in profits related to an electronic tagging contract for offenders.
Today a court dismissed the SFO’s plea to adjourn the hearing after it uncovered errors made with disclosures it had made in the case.
By Michael Cross2021-04-26T13:46:00+01:00
The high-profile prosecution of two former directors of outsourcing giant Serco collapsed today when a judge at Southwark Crown Court directed a jury to acquit following admissions of disclosure failings by the Serious Fraud Office. Nicholas Wood and Simon Marshall had been
accused of defrauding the government out of £12m by understating the profitability of Serco s prisoner-tagging contract. The matter was the subject of
In a statement, the SFO said that a prosecution review of its disclosure process uncovered errors made in the non-disclosure of certain materials . Mrs Justice Tipples rejected a request for an adjournment to remedy the position so that it could pursue a retrial, saying this was not in the public interest. The judge also pointed to what she called real concerns in relation to the nature of the prosecution case .
Southwark Crown Court Two ex-Serco bosses have been cleared of hiding £12 million in profits from the firm’s electronic tagging contracts with the Government after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped the prosecution. Former senior managers Simon Marshall, 59, from Ascot and Nicholas Woods, 51 from Ickford, Buckinghamshire have been on trial at Southwark Crown Court accused of fraud against the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) between 2011 and 2013. But on Monday judge Mrs Justice Tipples directed jurors to acquit Woods, ex-finance director of Serco home affairs, and Marshall, former operations director of field services, of a joint charge of fraud on or about August 11 2011.
The trial of two former executives at Serco has collapsed after the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) failed to disclose evidence to the defendants, in a major blow to the UKâs anti-corruption agency.
A judge at Southwark crown court on Monday instructed jurors to return a verdict of not guilty for Nicholas Woods and Simon Marshall, two former directors of the Serco subsidiary Serco Geografix Ltd, after the SFO offered no evidence following its identification of its error.
The executives had been charged with using fraud and false accounting to artificially reduce Sercoâs profit margins on a contract for the electronic monitoring of offenders on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.
Serco tagging trial collapses after SFO declines to bring evidence
Two former executives have been found not guilty after the Serious Fraud Office admits to ‘errors’ in disclosing materials for trial
26 April 2021 • 2:56pm
The Serious Fraud Office is facing fresh embarrassment after the trial of two former Serco executives accused of “fraud on the taxpayer” collapsed because of failures in preparing evidence.
The white-collar crime agency admitted it had “uncovered errors made in the non-disclosure of certain materials” in relation to the trial of Nicholas Woods and Simon Marshall, who worked on Serco s contract to electronically tag offenders for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).