City merchants wrongly convicted following the financial crisis spoke of their decade battle for justice, saying that they were scapegoats.
Tom Hayes was the first of the nine merchants to continue by the Serious Fraud Office.
In 2012, he was accused of Libor’s rigging – an interest rate on loans and financial contracts that was used in the financial system. The rate was determined daily, based on the submissions of several large banks.
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Mr. Hayes was initially sentenced to 14 years in prison, one of the most difficult sentences ever pronounced to crime in white collar. He served more than five years in prison, notably in high security prison Belmarsh.
Addressing Sky News after the Supreme Court overturned the convictionMr. Hayes said: “I came out (prison) to a son who was nine years old that I left when he was three years old. My marriage broke out while I was in prison. My mental health broke out while I was in prison.”
Wednesday, Tom Hayes (left) and Carlo Palombo outside the court. Pic: Reuters
Hayes said that he had been responsible for damage caused by the financial crisis. “There was this Zeitgeist who existed where they wanted to send bankers to prison … We were unlucky,” he said.
He was joined by Carlo Palombo, who was sentenced in 2019 for rigging Euribor, the rate of Libor Euro.
Palombo said that he had spent most of his days in a small cell he shared with another detainee in Wandsworth prison.
He said he was the victim of a “purge” by banks and regulators when they sought to reflect the consequences of the accident.
“The things I was accused and condemned were something that was done completely openly by absolutely everyone … It was just a normal commercial practice of the bank,” he said.
The judges of the Supreme Court said that the two men had not received a fair trial because the juries had been poorly oriented in the initial affairs. Essentially, they were told that their behavior was dishonest without arriving at this conclusion themselves.
The two men are now trying to continue their life. Mr. Hayes said he wanted to move to sea and rebuild his family.