The Telegraph
The fraud trial against three former Tesco directors has been abandoned after the judge was forced to discharge the jury because one of the accused suffered a major heart attack.
Carl Rogberg, Tesco’s former finance director, was admitted to hospital last week after a cardiac episode, leading to judge Deborah Taylor to dismiss the jury in case his illness prejudiced their decision, saying it was not “right and proper” to continue.
The three former bosses faced allegations of fraud and false accounting over a £250m profit black hole at the grocer, which came to light in 2014.
All denied wrongdoing and pled not guilty to the charges.
During the trial, which began in September after months of delays, the court heard the three men were accused of "cooking the books" by bringing forward income not yet earned to artificially inflate Tesco’s figures.
The discovery of the overstatement led to Tesco’s shares falling by 12pc, wiping £2bn off its market value.
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[post_ads]Tesco boss Dave Lewis had given evidence to the court in November. He revealed the level of “disagreements” between his predecessor Phil Clarke and the supermarket’s management team about profit targets in the weeks before its accounting scandal was exposed.
Just weeks after taking over, Mr Lewis was made aware of the accounting hole, and said his reaction was “one of surprise and one of shock” when the discrepancy was revealed.
A date for the retrial will be set in the coming months if one is ordered.
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