Prosecution obsessive, QC claims

GEORGE WALKER, former head of Brent Walker, and his finance chief, Wilfred Aquilina, were subjected to an 'obsessive and oppressive' prosecution, a court was told yesterday.

Roy Amlot QC, defending Mr Aquilina, said that the Serious Fraud Office had used a blunderbuss of a conspiracy charge covering a six-year period and involving allegations of a multi-million- pound profit fraud and its subsequent cover-up.

Mr Amlot told the jury at Southwark Crown Court that the Crown's tunnel-vision approach had seen the presentation of a theory followed by efforts to make everything fit into it. The trial had featured allegations that 'obsessively and myopically' concentrated on Brent Walker's film division. Nothing had been said as to what the entertainments business had really been involved in.

Mr Amlot said it was accepted by the prosecution that Mr Aquilina had not made a penny from his alleged dishonesty. 'What sort of a fraud is it where the Crown say that after six years he made nothing out of it?'

The trial was adjourned until Thursday.