After a trial lasting nearly 4 months, the jury could not decide on a verdict in the trial of the iSoft three ( Stephen Graham, Timothy Whiston, and John Whelan). Chairman Patrick Cryne, was too ill to attend and will stand trial later in the year. The FSA has a month to decide whether to go for a retrail.
I’ve written about iSoft on many occasions over the last 10 or more years. The charges – if they had been proved – of falsifying the statements given to the markets particularly relating to a nonexistent ‘contract’ with the Irish Health authorities in 2003 that transformed a £11m loss into an apparent £9.4m profit, certainly brought our industry into disrepute. In turn the fate of iSoft and its part in the NHS IT project brought huge problems – not least to CSC - again our industry suffered huge reputational damage. Apart from the personal reputations (and I would guess personal lives) of the defendants being ruined, luminaries like Digby Jones (a NED at iSoft) also suffered in the downdraft. See today’s FT article.
As the three men deny the charges and no verdict has been returned, it would be wrong to comment too much further. But the events are now nearly 10 years old and the case itself 6 years old. John Whelan’s solicitor describes his client as ”‘completely broken’ by the unrelenting pressure brought about by this matter subsuming his life since 2006.”
I do realise the great seriousness of this case but I do have some personal sympathy too. Firstly, I have sat on a jury trying a very simple case where, even then, many of my fellow jurors had difficulty grasping what was going on. I just cannot see how most normal people (ie not experts in corporate law) would have grasped the complexities of this case. Secondly, I too had legal proceedings hanging over me back in 2000. It adversely affected my life for a year even though I was completely ‘innocent’. Indeed the case was dropped before it came to court. I suspect in the court of common justice, Graham, Whiston and Whelan have probably ‘suffered enough’.