There used to be a very useful phrase to indicate that police were apprehending wrong-doers even though they had not pressed charges.
The suspect was "helping police with their enquiries". We wonder why a number of current and former employees of banks such as Royal Bank of Scotland are not helping police in a similar way.
Last week RBS chief executive Stephen Hester announced 21 current and former employees of the bank had been disciplined or "moved on" as a result of their involvement in the Libor fixing scandal. Why are these individuals not helping police with their enquiries right now? Why has there been no attempt to apprehend these individuals for possible fraud? There is no evidence any action has been taken against the banks in Scotland.
Why has the Crown Office, which is responsible for prosecutions in Scotland, not applied the full force of the law? Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS are Scottish-registered banks. They should be under the scrutiny of the Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland, who decides the case for prosecution on the basis of police evidence. Scottish – and British – taxpayers have the right to expect these crimes are fully and forcefully investigated. The Crown Office has said its enquiries are ongoing but there is as yet nothing to suggest any action is pending.
The Libor fixers were involved in the manipulation of a key interest rate, on which are based literally trillions of pounds of transactions, for their own financial benefit, the benefit of the bank and the benefit of other traders and hedge funds.
This has been called the worst example of insider trading and fraud in the history of financial markets. Millions of individuals and businesses have lost money because of interest rates on their debts being increased to benefit insiders in the City of London.
The individuals who perpetrated these financial crimes must be held to account, just like any benefit fraudster or common criminal.
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It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
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We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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