Traders jailed for interest rate rigging have convictions overturned
Tom Hayes, 45, was handed a 14-year jail sentence - cut to 11 years on appeal - in 2015, which was one of the toughest ever to be imposed for white-collar crime in UK history.
The former Citigroup and UBS trader, along with Carlo Palombo, 46, who was jailed for four years in 2019 over rigging the Euribor interest rates, took their cases to the country's highest court after the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals last year.
The Supreme Court unanimously allowed Hayes' appeal, overturning his 2015 conviction of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud by manipulating Libor, a now-defunct benchmark interest rate.
Ex-vice president of euro rates at Barclays bank Palombo's conviction for conspiring with others to submit false or misleading Euribor submissions between 2005 and 2009 was also quashed.
A spokesperson for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it would not be seeking a retrial.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
7 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
I was tricked into licking a woman's drug-laced BREASTS in 'Good night, Cinderella' scam… when I woke up she had taken valuables worth thousands
A UK-based businessman claims he was drugged and robbed after being tricked to lick a woman's drug-laced breasts in a 'Goodnight Cinderella' scam. The 27-year-old from Swindon says he met a glamorous woman and spent the evening drinking and chatting, but soon found himself a victim of a bizarre drugging scam known as 'Goodnight Cinderella', a term used in Brazil and other countries for a form of drink or contact spiking. Victims are given powerful sedatives, often mixed into drinks, that quickly render them helpless. In some cases, criminals allegedly apply drugs to their own skin so they are absorbed by the victim through intimate contact. Common substances such as Rohypnol and GHB are colourless, tasteless and odourless, and can cause extreme drowsiness, confusion and memory loss within minutes. In a chat with Daily Mail, he said: 'We began flirting at the club and she complimented my watch. She told me she would like to come home with me, and we went back to my hotel.' The high-earner, who was staying in a swanky hotel, says she seemed impressed with how luxurious the hotel was, but he did not pay it any mind. He added: 'We began engaging in sexual activity, and she brought me close to her chest to lick her breasts. I was into her, so I did, but after a few moments, I began feeling quite dizzy and disoriented. 'The room began spinning, and I remember she was just staring at me. I must have fainted shortly after that. I was knocked out for several hours.' When he came to, he says he felt sick and weak. 'I couldn't get myself to stand up properly,' he said. 'My legs were all wobbly. I also had a massive headache that felt more like a migraine. I also felt nauseous, but I just could not throw up. I couldn't piece together what had happened and why I was feeling this way.' But after sleeping off the feeling, he woke up again, and that's when he realised what had really happened. 'My phone was gone. And that's when I remembered there was someone in the room with me. She was also gone. 'I realised she had taken my watch, my phone, and some money. I had over $5,000 lying around, and it was gone. Luckily, the majority of the cash I had was in a hotel safe.' He said he initially decided to report the incident to the police, but decided against it as he did not want the situation to be public. Eventually, after getting a temporary replacement phone, he discussed the issue with a friend who advised him to speak to the cops. He explained: 'I reported everything and they began laughing at me. They clearly did not take the issue seriously and found it funny. I was disappointed and annoyed. After a while, they asked him to go over his report again and asked him questions about his tryst with the mysterious woman. He recalled: 'When I repeated that she made me lick her breasts, it felt like a light bulb had gone off in their minds. That's when they told me it was a new tactic that some women were using to rob unsuspecting men. They told me I was not the only one who it had happened to. They said they would look into the matter and asked me to describe the woman, which I did. 'I also told her where I met her and everything else. From the looks of things, I knew they wouldn't bother. I even told them they could check the hotel's CCTV.' 'I had just one more day in the country, so I decided to forget about it.' He said he was unable to tell his friends and family what had happened to him as he felt embarrassed by the circumstances. He added: 'Even to this day, not many people know about what happened. It's just a couple of close friends.' Although it took him several days to fully recover, he explained that the emotional impact was just as bad as the physical toll. 'It made me weary of strangers,' he admitted. 'Yes, I should not have taken a stranger back to my hotel, but this should not be happening. 'I realised I could have even died in the whole process. It was a frightening experience.' The Goodnight Cinderella scam has been linked to robberies, sexual assaults and even deaths. In Brazil, where the name originated, tourists have been found unconscious in hotel rooms or on the street after meeting strangers in bars and clubs. Police in several countries have linked the scam to thefts, sexual assaults and even deaths. This week, a British tourist recalled being robbed by three women after he took a sip of a drink they offered him in Brazil. In a video, the engineering graduate is seen stumbling onto a beach before collapsing on the sand. He said: 'I took two sips [of the cocktail] and I don't remember anything else. I tried to fight the drug. 'By the time I got to the beach I was completely out of it.' The women reportedly stole two mobile phones and the man later realised that £16,000 was missing from his account. Three women -Amanda Couto Deloca, 23, Mayara Ketelyn Americo da Silva, 26, and Raiane Campos de Oliveira, 27 - have now been arrested. Oliveira is said to have been arrested 20 times for similar crimes. He and his friend met the women at a samba dance in Rio and carried on the evening at a local bar, where he took a cocktail. Last month, a 23-year-old escort, known as the Queen of Goodnight Cinderella, was arrested in Rio. Francini Demétrio Sitas was accused of drugging, then robbing a French tourist. She allegedly also beat her victim. It has been claimed that she robbed him of more than £6,680. The man recalled how she approached him with two other women. They went drinking, but he lost consciousness at some point. He woke up in a hospital only to discover that he had multiple injuries. Police later said that this was not her first arrest. Police chief Patrícia Alemany said: 'She carefully picks her foreign victims. In this case, she drugged the French tourist and stole his phone and bank card. She made withdrawals totalling over 50,000 reais, and he was ultimately assaulted. 'Francini has countless cases of this type of crime and is known in the criminal underworld as the "Queen of Goodnight, Cinderella."' In June last year, two sex workers were jailed in Brazil after they drugged two tourists and then shoved them off a cliff. Tuane Silva da Costa and Davina Cristina de Moraes Melo honed in on their victims, Chilean holidaymakers Ronald Rafael Tejeda Sobarzo and Andrés Ignacio Orellana Ruiz, in May 2023. The women cunningly slipped date rape drugs into the men's beers. They all then went into a neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro in a taxi. The criminal pair then stole the men's mobile phones before pushing them off a 10ft cliff. Goodnight Cinderella scam The Goodnight Cinderella scam is a form of spiking in which victims are secretly given powerful sedatives that leave them unconscious, disoriented or unable to resist. They are colourless, odourless and tasteless, and can take effect within minutes. Experts say the best way to avoid falling victim is to keep your drink in sight at all times, accept drinks only directly from bar staff and remain cautious when meeting strangers alone, particularly late at night. Being aware of sudden dizziness, confusion or loss of coordination can also be vital, as these may be signs that a drug has been ingested. If these symptoms appear, it is important to get to a safe place and seek medical attention immediately. Victims are advised to inform the police as quickly as possible and request a toxicology test, as the drugs used often leave the body within hours. Preserving potential evidence, such as glasses or clothing, and seeking CCTV footage from hotels or nearby businesses, can also be crucial in helping to catch the perpetrators. They survived and were found the next morning on May 14, 2023. Although they were rushed to the hospital, Tejeda tragically died after three days. He succumbed to his head injuries. Andrés was also badly hurt - he had a broken collarbone, shattered ribs and punctures to his lungs and had to be operated on. The killer pair were arrested a year later. Although they claimed to be innocent, they were found guilty and were each ordered to serve 30 years and four months in prison. A taxi driver was also sentenced to 25 years and three months behind bars for aiding and abetting a crime. In November 2022, American Paul Nguyen was found dead in Medellin, Colombia, after going on a date with a woman he met on Tinder. Upon meeting the woman, he had a place in mind for them to go, but she is said to have convinced him to go with her to another location. He was last seen walking out of a bar with the woman at 2am. He was found dead at 5am. His sister said authorities believe he was drugged and robbed. In recent years, Colombia has seen a surge in reports of tourists getting drugged and robbed. Six months later, in April, it was announced that his Tinder date, Evelyn Henao, 23, Herrera and two others, César Augusto Mendoza López, 29, and Bryan Taborda Herrera, 27, had been arrested in connection with his death. Spiking cases while on holiday have been on the rise in recent times. There are several ways to tell if you have been drugged, including feeling more drunk than you should. Other tell-tale signs include headaches, according to Travel Aware, struggling to see, sudden dizziness, hallucinations, paranoia, drowsiness, and memory blackouts.
Daily Mail
7 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
I was a nurse at Broadmoor Hospital... Ronnie Kray and the Yorkshire ripper were NOT my scariest patients - here's who still gives me nightmares
You wouldn't guess from his soft Cornish voice and jolly demeanour that Paul Deacon worked at the most notorious mental institution in England. For a decade, Paul was a nurse at Broadmoor Hospital, the high-security psychiatric hospital situated in Crowthorne, Berkshire. Now in his sixties and retired, Paul witnessed everything over the course of his career - from being on shift when Peter Sutcliffe was stabbed in the eye, to popstars Martin and Gary Kemp paying Ronnie Kray a visit. After leaving school with no qualifications, where he says he was 'a bit of a rebel', Paul began working at a shop in his hometown. Witnessing a man collapse and later die on his shift deeply shocked the teenager - and, on the advice of a counsellor, he decided to become a nurse. At the tender age of 18, Paul was thrown in at the deep end on the busiest ward in St Lawrence's psychiatric hospital in Bodmin, Cornwall. His job was to assess patients on the admissions ward who had just come in - unmedicated - with various mental health problems like schizophrenia, severe depression, bipolar and eating disorders. The opportunity to work at Broadmoor was one Paul jumped at, 'Why not?' he thought. He recalls how during his interview he was forbidden from looking around the hospital, and that nurses there referred to dormitories as 'cells' instead of rooms, and called patients 'inmates'. Inside Broadmoor, Paul quickly worked his way up the system. He was there when the most notorious inmates were: Charles Bronson, Ronnie Kray and Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper'. These serial killers and mob bosses were however 'no bother' - they only created more work for the nurses because other inmates kept trying to attack them. Paul was on shift the day that Peter Sutcliffe was stabbed in the eye by a fellow patient. 'We had 200 female patients banging on their doors cheering the day he was stabbed in the eye,' Paul remembers. He said Ronnie Kray was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the 'father figure' of the hospital. Kray 'could be very violent' and continued to run his business ventures from prison - even trying to recruit staff, Paul said. Paul recalls one instance when he was on duty in the visiting hall, with about 30 other nurses. He noticed everyone pointed at the door and started whispering in excited tones. Paul turned to the door to look, and in walked Martin and Gary Kemp. 'They were researching for their new film, The Krays. 'You can get confectionary from the mess, so they ordered a couple of shandies and a chocolate bar, had the interview with Ronnie, who left them with the bill. 'It was £150! Martin looked at it and said "that's a bit expensive for two shandies and a chocolate bar!" Paul laughs. 'Ronnie had added on a charge for the interview.' Its infamous convicts arguably made Broadmoor a household name in the 1980s and 90s as the oldest and one of the highest security mental hospitals in England. But there was one encounter, with a patient who didn't make the headlines, that still wakes Paul up in the middle of the night. 'I was in a music lesson supervising a patient. I'd worked with him before and usually we got on fine. 'But he kept looking at me in a really funny way. It was chilling. I asked him what was wrong. 'He said "Paul, the voices are really bad today, they're telling me to kill you". 'It made me go cold. It made me realise you could never get complacent on that job, ever. I still wake up in the early mornings haunted by it.' 'It reminded me never to get too comfortable with a patient or let my guard down.' Another time, Paul found himself locked inside a cell alone with a patient. Although he had practiced for this scenario during mandatory 'hostage training', Paul confesses that he was in 'complete shock' when his colleagues accidentally locked him inside a cell with an unbound patient having a psychotic episode. 'Everybody was trained but it just went totally wrong on this day,' Paul recalls. 'You never mentioned the names of other staff members - we all had numbers to avoid any confusion if people had the same name. 'There were three of us restraining one patient. I said number two get out - and they both left. 'The door shut and the patient jumped up; it was now a hostage situation and I was in complete shock.' But despite these flash episodes of absolute terror, Paul remains sympathetic for the inmates he worked with over years at Broadmoor. 'Most of them have really bad role models as young people - all abusive or awful parents. On a day to day basis they were drip fed trauma.' Hence why he found it shocking that some prisoners tried to fake mental illnesses to get into Broadmoor and avoid a normal prison sentence - a big mistake, Paul says. 'You learnt how to spot the fakers from the look in their eyes and how they responded to medication. 'One man quickly realised his mistake - he role played hearing voices and got caught out. 'But once he realised he couldn't simply leave he was petrified and started crying.' Paul explains: 'In prison, you have a release date, in hospital there is no such certainty. 'They have a tribunal of people at Broadmoor debating whether to let you out. It's a collective decision.' The best part of Paul's job was seeing patients cured. He reflects on one young actor who had been on the soaps. After going psychotic on set and stabbing someone in town, he had been entered into Broadmoor Hospital, where Paul helped treat him for ten years. 'He's married with kids now. That's one of the best bits of the job - seeing people cured. I believe there's always hope.' But witnessing some patients come out of their psychosis was also the worst part of the job for Paul. 'When you're nursing someone who's extremely psychotic, it can be very traumatic when they become well again and have the shock of realising they've killed someone. 'Being told you've slaughtered your entire family makes someone so terrified, it makes me wonder whether sometimes the kindest thing to do would have been to keep treating the psychosis on a low level with medication.' Paul misses the comradery of the nursing team at Broadmoor, the excitement of working with new patients and building relationships with them. But now the former nurse keeps busy in retirement by speaking about his time there and reliving the highs - and the lows. Paul also sits on the board for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is currently writing a second book.
The Independent
8 minutes ago
- The Independent
Police chief says shoplifters feel they can rob with impunity
Shoplifting offences in the UK reached a record high in 2024, surpassing 500,000 for the first time, marking a 20% increase from the previous year. Katy Bourne, the national lead for shoplifting at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, stated that some shoplifters act with impunity and called for more robust police interventions and meaningful criminal justice measures. Ms Bourne announced that Sussex will trial an electronic tagging scheme for persistent shoplifters and expressed approval for the rollout of live facial recognition cameras in police vans. Assistant Chief Constable Jon Cummins of Avon and Somerset Police suggested wider societal issues like poverty and the cost-of-living crisis contribute to the rise in shoplifting. Both policing chiefs cautioned the public against intervening directly with shoplifters, while Iceland supermarket announced a 1 reward for customers who report offenders to staff.
