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Trio jailed for football takeover fraud
20 Jul 2009Three men involved in the fraudulent takeover of a former Premier League football club were jailed today.
Jeremy Keith, former chief executive of Derby County Football Club, ex-finance director Andrew Mackenzie and former director of football Murdo Mackay were all handed prison sentences at Northampton Crown Court after it was found that they claimed "secret commission" in the deal.
Keith, 41, of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, was sentenced to 18 months after previously being found guilty of falsifying documents when he and his associates bought the club for just £3 in 2003.
Mackenzie, 55, of Burton Road, Derby, and 53-year-old Mackay, of Fife, Scotland, were each jailed for three years after they were found guilty of fraud.
David Lowe, their legal adviser during the takeover, was convicted of helping to launder £81,895 of the £440,625 the trio tried to claim as a brokerage fee. He was jailed for two years today.
Keith, Mackenzie and Mackay were all disqualified from being company directors - Keith for three years, and the other two for five years.
The court heard that the trio claimed "secret commission" of £440,625 after arranging a £15 million loan for the cash-strapped club from a Panama-based corporation.
It was claimed they used the loan as a "carrot" for the club, convincing administrators to sanction the takeover.
During the trial, jurors were told that Derby County, nicknamed the Rams, were struggling in 2003 following their relegation from the Premier League the previous year.
The Pride Park club owed more than £35 million and had been put into receivership by the Co-op Bank, the court heard.
A fifth man, Mark Waters, 48, of Bromley, south east London, who worked for the board as an accountant in 2003, was found not guilty of falsifying documents.
Passing sentence today, Judge Ian Alexander told the men: "Fraud in its various guises is, and always has been, a crime which pervades all sections of society.
"It is a crime which is usually quite deliberate, with the expectation that the fraud will not be discovered.
"If detected, it generally requires a lot of work to investigate and prosecute.
"It eats away at the financial structure of society.
"Those found guilty can generally expect to be sent to prison depending on the amount of money involved and the circumstances of the fraud."
He told the men that, before their conviction, they were "men of some prominence" in their respective professional lives.
He went on: "When dishonesty and fraud is perpetrated by those to whom others are entitled to look up to by virtue of their position or occupation, and who appear to have been successful in their lives, the fall from grace is in some ways more reprehensible and must be dealt with accordingly.
"The spectre of prominent members of society behaving in such a dishonest way on this scale, without any apparent hesitation, conscience or remorse, is very unedifying and can only be dealt with by immediate custodial sentences.
"You are all mature, intelligent men with no previous convictions and all of you, no doubt, have in many other ways acted admirably during your lives. but you have now all been found guilty by a jury of serious offences.
"It struck me during the trial that you, like so many people who commit business and professional crime, somehow give the impression that you do not believe the rules apply to you and that what you do in your business life is perfectly acceptable.
"There is, however, only one standard of honesty and it applies to us all."
