Judge defends his sentence on Levitt

THE JUDGE who sentenced the City financier, Roger Levitt, to 180 hours community service for deceiving financial regulators, yesterday defended his decision not to impose a prison term.

Mr Justice Laws, sentencing a third man involved in the affair, said the sentencing was not for cheating anyone out of any money, which had already occurred by the time false documents were sent to Fimbra, the regulatory body.

After Levitt, 44, and his managing director, Mark Reed, 40 - who received 120 hours' community service - pleaded guilty to the lesser offence, the Serious Fraud Office dropped more serious charges of fraudulently producing false accounts and fraudulently injecting funds into their company.

The SFO had prepared an even wider indictment alleging that company investors had been defrauded. These were severed by the judge and the Crown decided not to pursue them in a second trial.

Yesterday the judge fined Alan McNamara, another Levitt director, pounds 750 and banned him from being a company director for 18 months for recklessly furnishing false and misleading information to Fimbra. He had also faced the same more serious charges.

Mr Justice Laws told McNamara: 'You don't fall to be sentenced for cheating anybody out of any money whatsoever, as I hoped I had explained last week. That was also the position as regards your co-defendants, Levitt and Reed.

'The confessions by both to fraudulent trading concerned the acts by which Fimbra was deceived in the closing stages of the Levitt Group saga. The persons, including banks and private individuals who had lost money . . . had already lost it by the time false documents were put up to Fimbra.'