CALLS were made last night for the publication of a report into a #42m
collapse of a bank after its managing director and general manager were
convicted of fraud.
About 4000 investors of the Savings and Investment Bank on the Isle of
Man lost money when the bank crashed 10 years ago.
The bank inspectors' report into the collapse was not published
because managing director Robert Killin and general manager John
Cunningham faced criminal charges.
The two men were among five found guilty of fraud by a jury at
Manchester Crown Court yesterday. Killin and Cunningham used the bank's
money in a #550,000 fraud over a land deal in Lancashire.
Cunningham, 48, of Blackwood Avenue, Newton Mearns, Glasgow, was given
a 12-month suspended sentence for conspiracy to defraud at the end of a
nine-week trial.
Killin, 61, of Weld Road, Southport, Merseyside, will be sentenced
later.
Criminal charges against the two, and others over the bank's collapse,
were dropped two years ago when a trial on the island was halted because
of the time it had taken to come to court.
Miss Gwendoline Lamb, of Middlesbrough, who lost her #30,000 life
savings in the bank's crash, called for the immediate publication of the
report which took four years to compile at a cost of #1m.
She also called for full compensation for those who lost money,
although many have since died.
''There is now nothing stopping the Manx Government from releasing
this report,'' she said.
''There has been scandalous negligence on the part of the Manx
Government and the Treasury. They have no alternative but to show honour
and integrity and make immediate full refunds.''
An earlier Bank of England report criticised the Manx Government over
the supervision of banking on the island at the time of the crash.
Manx MPs later voted for ''modest'' ex-gratia payments for investors
but shelved the decision.
Manx Government chief secretary Fred Kissack said last night the
decision on whether to allow publication of the report rested with the
island's High Court, which commissioned the report and had been waiting
for the trial to finish.
He said on the assumption the court would allow publication, ''then we
will publish''.
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