Guinness Four lose appeal
Ernest Saunders and his three co-defendants in the 1990 Guinness trial today failed in a renewed appeal against their convictions.
The Court of Appeal ruled that a claim by the ‘‘Guinness Four’’ that their trial was unfair under the Human Rights Act had been rendered unarguable by a recent House of Lords decision that human rights laws were not retrospective in relation to appeals.
Three judges also rejected argument that there had been a possibility of bias in the light of fresh evidence of an alleged plot to ‘‘nobble’’ the foreman of the jury.
The court upheld the convictions of former Guinness chief executive Saunders, businessman Gerald Ronson, financier Jack Lyons and stockbroker Anthony Parnes on charges relating to an illegal scheme to boost the value of Guinness shares in the run-up to the company’s £2.6bn takeover of Distillers in 1986.
