Maxwell freed from second fraud trial

MR KEVIN Maxwell, youngest son of media magnate Robert Maxwell, whose death in 1991 led to the collapse of his business empire, will not face a second trial on fraud charges, a judge ruled yesterday.

Judge John Buckley said a further trial "would be unfair, so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power of the court", adding that he had come to the clear view that the proceedings served no further public interest.

His decision effectively ended five years of controversy over hundreds of millions of pounds which were found missing from Maxwell company pension funds after Maxwell disappeared from his yacht in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It is an enormous victory for commonsense and humanity. I'm enormously relieved, immensely relieved and delighted," an ecstatic Mr Maxwell said on leaving the court.

"It's a hell of a moment. Quite clearly this was a very powerful and uncompromising judgement. Thank God he stopped it."

In January, Mr Maxwell, his brother, Mr Ian Maxwell, and former Maxwell director, Mr Larry Trachtenberg, were acquitted of conspiring to defraud pension funds after an eight month trial.

More than £400 million sterling was found missing from the company pension funds after Robert Maxwell's death. Both his sons denied any involvement in misusing pension fund money to prop up Maxwell private companies.

"My immediate reaction is not one of anger or bitterness and I don't want to use words like vindictive or vendetta let other people do that," said Mr Kevin Maxwell. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) sought to bring charges in a second trial against Mr Kevin Maxwell Mr Trachtenberg, and two former Maxwell executives, Mr Albert Fuller and Mr Michael Stoney.

All had proceedings stopped against them under the ruling.

The judgment brings into question how the SFO, set up to deal with major financial fraud, will act in the future.

"We have reached the end of the legal process," said SFO director, Mr George Staple, in a statement. "The law does not provide any avenue of appeal. There are serious implications for the prosecution of the largest and most complex criminal cases."

Sources close to the SFO said the judge's decision would put it in an impossible position when it came to tackling the largest and most important frauds and reopen the debate over whether Juries are qualified to hear complex fraud cases.

The judge said that the factor that had influenced him most was, "(that) the essential criminality of the prosecution's case was before the jury in the first trial".

"Broadly speaking, if any jury was going to convict in this case, surely it would have been on the pension counts (at the first trial)," he told the court.

Mr Kevin Maxwell had taken his case before the judge to argue that the impending second trial was "oppressive".