Don't blame me for lies - Severn ex-MD - Business

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Severn Trent was yesterday fined £2 million in the first case of its kind for misreporting key leakage data to regulators, and thereby misleading financial markets.

Severn admitted the charges but laid the blame at the door of its previous management whom current Severn chief executive Tony Wray damned as having "indefensible shortcomings in management and control systems during the 2000 to 2004 era".

Today Brian Duckworth, the managing-director from 1994 to 2004, said: "The new management of Severn Trent took a decision to plead guilty to two criminal charges in the full knowledge that I as the then managing director resolutely denied any suggestion of personal wrongdoing.

"Severn Trent's own public statements have sought to distance its new management by apportioning responsibility and therefore guilt at the hands of the 'previous regime'."

The Serious Fraud Office, which brought the prosecution, said it will not charge Duckworth.