£60m fraud trial collapses after 21 months in court

The men had been accused of conspiring to corrupt public officials and gain insider information on a 2 billion extension to London Underground’s Jubilee Line.

But after continuing delays which dogged the proceedings, Judge Ann Goddard brought the trial to a halt.

Five of the defendants were on legal aid at a cost of just under 14 million.

Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, last night announced an inquiry into the trial, pre-empting renewed calls for such cases to be tried without a jury.

Lord Goldsmith said: "This decision will cause great public disquiet as it causes me considerable disquiet. Most serious allegations have not in the end been brought to a conclusion.

"Considerable public money has been expended. Much time for a jury and for a judge and defendants has been expended. It is important to learn what lessons we can."

Lord Goldsmith said he had asked Stephen Wooler, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Crown Prosecution Services, to investigate.

The failure to return any jury verdict in the case is expected to herald renewed calls for similar cases to be tried before judges only. The trial folded after sickness, jury problems, lengthy delays and disruption stopped proceedings to such an extent that a fair trial became impossible.

Judge Goddard formally cleared the six after the prosecution said they would not pursue a retrial and offered no evidence.

The men cleared were Stephen Rayment, 44, from Leatherhead, Surrey; Mark Woodward-Smith, 44, from Wimbledon, south-west London; Paul Fisher, 52, from Saffron Walden, Essex; Mark Skinner, 50, from Warlingham, Surrey; Graham Scard, 50, from Forest Hill, south-east London; and Anthony Wootton, 50, from Stone-in-Oxney, Kent. They were all involved in the Jubilee Line extension project and had all denied corruption.

Outside court, Mr Skinner said: "Although I should now feel relief and happiness, I feel only anger. Anger at a prosecution which has destroyed my business and tortured my family for over seven years and caused significant damage to my health; anger that no-one in a position to do so stepped in and ended what had become a farce long ago."

Brian Spiro, solicitor for Mr Rayment and Mr Woodward-Smith, said: "They are pleased and relieved to walk away with their good names intact."

The British Transport Police said the Jubilee Line extension project was, at the time, the biggest civil engineering project in Europe. It added: "It was clear that any trial was going to be lengthy, but the time spent in both the investigation and in managing issues show the police’s determination not to be soft on ‘white collar’ crime."

Chris Newell, a Crown Prosecution Service director of casework, said: "The allegations in this case were very serious and it was clearly in the public interest to bring them before a court and to have them tried by a jury.

"It is essential that the criminal justice system as a whole learns from this experience and that the exceptional circumstances that brought it about are never repeated."

The trial’s collapse also coincided with the Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf’s call for fraud and other complex crimes to be brought back to an "acceptable and proper duration".

He said there was a "broad consensus that the length of fraud and trials of other complex crimes must be controlled within proper bounds".

This was in order to enable a jury to "retain and assess the evidence which they have heard". He said: "If the trial is so long that the jury cannot do this, then the trial is not fair."

The Jubilee trial was punctuated with problems throughout and was even criticised in the House of Commons for "the inordinate amount of time" it was taking.

The case started in 1997 when the British Transport Police started investigating alleged corruption in connection with contracts for the extension. It was not until June 2003 that the trial of the six men accused first opened.

The jury was told it was expected to last for 18 months. By March last year it was still in the midst of the prosecution case. The jury were down to ten. One had become pregnant and another arrested for alleged benefit fraud.