Banker sold his soul

A CORRUPT British banker who holidayed in Mallorca with his ill-gotten gains has been jailed for 11 years. A London judge described the money laundering scandal as one of the worst cases he had ever seen. 

Lynden Scourfield, a director at HBOS, forced clients to do business through a consultancy owned by David Mills, who received 15 years for his part in the crime. Desperate business owners seeking loans were forced to go through the illegal consultancy and extorted for lucrative bribes.

The pair were ringleaders of the corrupt cabal which poured the eyewatering ‘consultancy fees’ into their own personal accounts, ultimately defrauding the bank and hundreds of small business owners of more than €300 million. 

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court heard how the bankers spent millions hiring superyachts and prostitutes during lavish trips to Mallorca and the Caribbean.  Judge Martin Beddoe told Scourfield that he had ‘sold his soul’ to the devil ‘for sex, for bling and for swag’ during the 2005-2007 crime spree. 

An inquiry will now determine whether Lloyds, which owns HBOS, has a moral and legal duty to compensate the hundreds of men and women left ‘cheated, defeated and penniless.’