:00:06. > :00:16.have fled the country. Time for a special report on the
:00:16. > :00:19.
:00:20. > :00:23.rise and fall of Asil Nadir. He was the astonishingly successful
:00:23. > :00:28.millionaire businessman whose company was brought crashing down
:00:28. > :00:36.by an investigation that has taken over 20 years to complete.
:00:36. > :00:42.Throughout that time, Asil Nadir has protested his innocence. There
:00:43. > :00:49.was gross misconduct on the part of the prosecutor of the gravest kind
:00:49. > :00:54.over this whole affair. Once the darling of the Stock Exchange, he
:00:54. > :00:59.became a fugitive from justice. When he was secretly flown over the
:00:59. > :01:06.English Channel and out of the country. Once we were halfway
:01:06. > :01:11.across, he was pointing and asked where France was. I said, over
:01:12. > :01:16.there. We are no longer in British airspace, you are free. He left
:01:16. > :01:20.behind a case so contentious it reached into government and spilled
:01:20. > :01:26.out dramatically on to the floor of the House of Commons. If one cannot
:01:26. > :01:31.speak in this place not about innocence or guilt, not about trial,
:01:31. > :01:39.not about some juicy, but what has gone wrong with this system, then,
:01:39. > :01:46.Madam Speaker,... It is after the trial the honourable gentleman must
:01:46. > :01:51.give this information. That is the point! Now, it has finally ended in
:01:51. > :02:01.his conviction. The Serious Fraud Office's long pursuit of Asil Nadir
:02:01. > :02:12.
:02:12. > :02:19.has been vindicated. When he flew back into Britain in
:02:20. > :02:25.2010, he said he wanted to finally clear his name. Everybody should be
:02:25. > :02:31.seen innocent until they are proven guilty. Are you innocent?
:02:31. > :02:37.Absolutely. Why do you think I am here voluntarily? He launched a
:02:37. > :02:40.series of legal challenges to stop the trial. He claimed the
:02:40. > :02:50.prosecution brought by the Serious Fraud Office was fundamentally
:02:50. > :02:58.
:02:58. > :03:03.flawed. But they all failed and the trial began in January. The 1980s
:03:03. > :03:08.was the get-rich-quick decade. No- one got richer quicker than Asil
:03:08. > :03:18.Nadir. Starting in the rag trade in 1980, he made an investment that
:03:18. > :03:22.
:03:22. > :03:27.would turn him into a modern-day Midas. He paid nearly �300,000 for
:03:27. > :03:31.a stake in a small textile company called Polly Peck. As it expanded,
:03:32. > :03:39.he set about devouring more and more companies and by the end of
:03:39. > :03:45.the decade, Polly Peck had 200 subsidiaries and was valued at �2
:03:45. > :03:49.billion. It is a British public company, British shareholders,
:03:50. > :03:58.employing 40,000 direct in four years... The height point came when
:03:58. > :04:05.he snapped up the fruit and vegetable giant, Del Monty.
:04:05. > :04:10.Investors loved Polly Peck. Every company report was very good. And
:04:10. > :04:17.very burgeoning, getting bigger and bigger every here. There was no
:04:17. > :04:21.reason to have any doubts about it. He mixed in the highest circles and
:04:21. > :04:28.was the donor to the Conservative Party. By the end of the decade,
:04:28. > :04:32.Polly Peck was one of the leading FTSE 100 companies. But things
:04:32. > :04:38.started to fall spectacularly a part for Asil Nadir when the
:04:38. > :04:41.Serious Fraud Office raided one of his buildings in Mayfair. They were
:04:41. > :04:51.investigating allegations of insider trading and that triggered
:04:51. > :04:54.
:04:54. > :05:00.the collapse of Polly Peck. It was a very public way it with
:05:00. > :05:10.newspapers there. Within the window, they create a cloud o the EU, which
:05:10. > :05:10.
:05:10. > :05:20.is very damaging. -- with innuendo, they create a cloud over you, which
:05:20. > :05:25.is very damaging. It can have a devastating effect. The effect was
:05:25. > :05:30.devastating. The September, 1998, police raid was followed by a
:05:30. > :05:36.shocking series of events. The next day, the Polly Peck share price
:05:36. > :05:41.collapsed. The following month, the company went into administration.
:05:41. > :05:46.Then at the Serious Fraud Office raided the Polly Peck headquarters.
:05:46. > :05:52.In November, Asil Nadir was arrested in dramatic circumstances
:05:52. > :05:57.as he arrived back in London on his private jet. There was a massive
:05:57. > :06:04.arrest procedure with dozens of armed people surrounding the
:06:04. > :06:11.aircraft... It was a ridiculous affair. And I was arrested, taken
:06:11. > :06:15.to Holborn police station. It was a catastrophic fall from grace for
:06:15. > :06:20.Asil Nadir, who was charged with theft and false accounting on a
:06:20. > :06:25.massive scale. When the company collapsed, shareholders,
:06:25. > :06:30.individuals and corporate, lost a huge amount of money. Various
:06:30. > :06:36.people lost their jobs when Polly Peck International collapsed. As
:06:36. > :06:42.far as the reputation of London as a financial centre is concerned,
:06:42. > :06:48.it's that sort of thing can occur, it does damage our reputation.
:06:48. > :06:55.Robert Hillier, a mother with five children, who had used her savings
:06:55. > :06:59.to buy Polly Peck stock, was caught completely by surprise. It had a
:06:59. > :07:05.brilliant annual report from accountants, giving no reason to
:07:05. > :07:15.think that they would be bad in any way. That they would suddenly go
:07:15. > :07:20.
:07:20. > :07:23.broke. And a few days later, complete collapse.
:07:23. > :07:28.investigation had been run by the Serious Fraud Office which had been
:07:28. > :07:31.established a few years earlier to deal with a wave of financial
:07:31. > :07:41.scandals. It would be seriously tested during its long pursuit of
:07:41. > :07:46.Asil Nadir. He was accused of stealing �150 million from Polly
:07:46. > :07:50.Peck's bank accounts in London, often transferring it through the
:07:50. > :08:00.Channel Islands and then through a complex network of companies which
:08:00. > :08:01.
:08:01. > :08:04.his family controlled. The prosecution said he used to �25
:08:04. > :08:11.million of the stolen money to buy thousands of Polly Peck shares to
:08:11. > :08:20.prop up the share price. And that �20 million went into family trusts
:08:20. > :08:24.and to his relatives. Then there were the vanity projects. Still the
:08:24. > :08:29.money helped him by this 17th century estate in Rutland. He
:08:29. > :08:36.planned to turn it into a hotel and golf course. This stately home and
:08:36. > :08:40.a farm in Leicestershire, which he bought for himself. After Polly
:08:40. > :08:46.Peck International collapsed, the administrators went to northern
:08:46. > :08:54.Cyprus to attempt to recover the cash but found only a black hole.
:08:54. > :08:58.He used deal that money? Absolutely not. It makes you wonder... A man
:08:58. > :09:05.worth hundreds of millions of pounds spending dozens of millions
:09:05. > :09:11.of pounds per year on charity, automotive does he have to steal
:09:11. > :09:19.money? -- what motives? To steal money from an empire you have
:09:19. > :09:23.created yourself? Absolutely not. From the very absent, the Serious
:09:23. > :09:30.Fraud Office investigation and prosecution of Asil Nadir was beset
:09:30. > :09:35.by controversy -- from the very out set. It included one of the most
:09:35. > :09:40.controversial episodes in English legal history. The police had began
:09:40. > :09:44.to investigate allegations of a plot by Asil Nadir to ride the
:09:44. > :09:52.judge. Alan Jones was the barrister at the time with the unenviable job
:09:52. > :10:02.of explaining this in open court. My job was to tell the judge there
:10:02. > :10:03.
:10:03. > :10:09.was an investigation by police into a plot to bribe the judge. The
:10:09. > :10:15.people involved... And it was my job to tell the judge that was what
:10:15. > :10:24.the police were investigating. you let tent at any stage to bribe
:10:24. > :10:27.the trial judge? No, I didn't. And they also knew that I had not.
:10:27. > :10:32.allegations made by a police informant were eventually dropped.
:10:32. > :10:36.It was a complication to the case we could have well done without but
:10:36. > :10:41.you cannot close your eyes to the fact that such allegations were
:10:41. > :10:47.being made. Asil Nadir claims he was now at breaking point,
:10:47. > :10:57.convinced he would not receive a fair trial. The pressure was so
:10:57. > :11:00.
:11:00. > :11:09.unbelievable, the injustice was so unbelievable. I was very ill.
:11:09. > :11:13.the spring of 1993, he took the fateful decision to flee the
:11:13. > :11:19.country. He enlisted the help of a few trusted people, including this
:11:19. > :11:22.man, Peter Diamond, who, in a rare television interview, told me how
:11:22. > :11:28.Asil Nadir evaded the police surveillance team posted outside
:11:28. > :11:34.his house. He left the house quite cleverly heaving his manservant
:11:34. > :11:43.standing by the window wearing his clothes, looking like him. He went
:11:43. > :11:47.out the back into a waiting vehicle. He had a person with a week and --
:11:47. > :11:54.he had a bag with a week and were starting their but it turned out
:11:54. > :12:01.not to be necessary. He was driven from London to Dorset in a state of
:12:01. > :12:06.AG, nervous anticipation. He was a very heavy smoker. At one stage, he
:12:07. > :12:11.had two cigarettes in his hand, especially when we saw the police.
:12:11. > :12:17.The game seemed up, the plan foiled, when they spotted a police
:12:17. > :12:24.motorcycle and squad car. He was very up tight and that point. He
:12:24. > :12:31.told me to go faster. I said, no mac, if we go faster, we will be
:12:31. > :12:37.too obvious. The motorcycle followed us for about half a mile.
:12:37. > :12:43.Then luckily he peeled off. Eventually, they arrived at this
:12:43. > :12:47.small airfield in the middle of the countryside. We came right up to
:12:48. > :12:54.this date, left the car and walked straight to the aeroplane. The
:12:54. > :13:00.engine was on and the door was open. Within 35 seconds, we were airborne.
:13:00. > :13:06.He was very concerned that we get away from the English coastline.
:13:06. > :13:11.That when we got to be point, we with turn right. He was asking,
:13:11. > :13:21.where it is France? I said it was over there, you are no longer in
:13:21. > :13:25.
:13:25. > :13:31.British airspace. He was free. Nadir eventually arrived in
:13:32. > :13:35.northern Cyprus. It was a massive embarrassment. The Serious Fraud
:13:35. > :13:39.Office have let the man at the centre of one of the biggest-ever
:13:39. > :13:44.fraud trials slip through its fingers. And they had no prospect
:13:44. > :13:54.of getting him back. The Turkish controlled part of the island has
:13:54. > :14:01.
:14:01. > :14:09.no extradition treaty with the UK. With Asil Nadir out of the country,
:14:09. > :14:14.serious questions about the conduct of the FSO continued. A Tory
:14:14. > :14:24.government minister was concerned about the taking and copying of
:14:24. > :14:30.papers belonging to Asil Nadir. He was forced to resign when it was
:14:30. > :14:35.revealed that, after Astle the deer's arrest, he had sent him a
:14:35. > :14:42.watch engraved with the words don't let the buckers get you down. --
:14:42. > :14:51.Asil Nadir's arrest. In an explosive resignation speech, he
:14:51. > :14:56.lambasted the FSO. I turn to port the house need you as the most
:14:56. > :15:01.serious aspect of the whole affair, namely that quite improper pressure
:15:01. > :15:11.has apparently been exercised upon the FSO upon the trial judge, Mr
:15:11. > :15:14.
:15:14. > :15:21.Justice Tucker. Order, order, order. Order. I am now... Order. I am now
:15:21. > :15:31.it requiring the Honourable Gentleman to resume his seat.
:15:31. > :15:39.all coming back. Do you remember? No. This is the moment of absolute
:15:39. > :15:47.despair. I was in despair. If one cannot come to the house and
:15:47. > :15:53.tell them what is wrong with the system, if one cannot speak in this
:15:53. > :16:03.place, not about innocence or guilt, not about trial, not about is the
:16:03. > :16:06.
:16:06. > :16:11.BBC but what has gone wrong with the system, then, Madam Speaker,...
:16:11. > :16:16.It is after the trial that the Honourable Gentleman must give this
:16:16. > :16:20.information. That is the point. can see, just watching this. This
:16:20. > :16:30.is the first time I have seen us. I would never want to go through this
:16:30. > :16:32.
:16:32. > :16:37.again. Lorna Harris was disciplined over the copying and distribution
:16:37. > :16:44.of Asil Nadir's papers which were taken from his office in 1990 and
:16:44. > :16:48.for failing to brief the then Attorney-General. The judge in Asil
:16:48. > :16:58.Nadir's case ruled that her conduct did not affect the fairness of the
:16:58. > :16:59.
:16:59. > :17:06.trial. There was no improper purpose behind this particular
:17:06. > :17:12.aspects. It led to the resignation of a minister. The involvement of
:17:12. > :17:22.Michael Mades, it was art matter for him whether he wanted to design
:17:22. > :17:25.
:17:25. > :17:30.With Asil Nadir gone, the SFO had hit a brick wall. There was
:17:30. > :17:40.potentially a vital evidence in northern Cyprus but they could not
:17:40. > :17:45.get it through official channels. Following the invasion by Turkish
:17:45. > :17:50.troops in 1974, the England had been divided in two. Britain did
:17:50. > :17:57.not recognise the north. It was there that the Asil Nadir family
:17:57. > :18:05.had built up its wealth. I travelled to the place that was
:18:05. > :18:10.refuge to Asil Nadir for 17 years. And there are very few signs of the
:18:10. > :18:17.mighty empire that Asil Nadir once ran here. The assets were seized
:18:17. > :18:22.and the jobs have long since gone. Yet, there is almost no one here
:18:22. > :18:31.who does not know the name of Asil Nadir.
:18:31. > :18:38.He contributed to our economy immensely. I referred to him as the
:18:38. > :18:43.commander of or economy. I was so pleased with him. This man was the
:18:43. > :18:51.former president of Northern Cyprus. He spoke to us shortly before his
:18:51. > :18:57.death last year. He revealed that he was asked by a member of the
:18:57. > :19:04.British Government to have them arrested. I was short. I said that
:19:04. > :19:10.under my constitution he had committed no offence. I said I
:19:10. > :19:19.could not arrest a man just because you requested. I was short. He was
:19:19. > :19:27.short. He was short for night rejected him. That she was shocked
:19:27. > :19:33.when I rejected them. As long as Asil Nadir stayed inside us, he was
:19:33. > :19:42.safe. Others close to him could not escape British law. -- stayed in
:19:42. > :19:48.Cyprus. Elizabeth Forsyth had run the company which dealt with his
:19:48. > :19:54.personal investments. She was convicted of laundering more than
:19:54. > :20:00.�500,000, stolen by Asil Nadir to pay off his debts. They placed me
:20:00. > :20:09.for are the murderers were kept. They put me into Myra Hindley's
:20:09. > :20:14.cell just after she left to go into an open prison. Mrs Forsyth had her
:20:14. > :20:20.conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal. She hosted by her former
:20:20. > :20:27.boss for the last 20 years. I was in a position to know if he stole
:20:27. > :20:34.money. In fact, we looked after his personal shareholding. We looked
:20:34. > :20:39.after his personal assets. I never found there was anything amiss.
:20:39. > :20:44.The pilot who helped Asil Nadir fly out of Britain would also face
:20:44. > :20:48.justice. He was convicted and then cleared on appeal. He is critical
:20:48. > :20:53.of his former friend. He let a lot of people down very
:20:53. > :20:56.badly. He is one of these guys who does not keep his promises. He
:20:56. > :21:01.makes lots of promises and never keeps them.
:21:01. > :21:07.Speculation about why he had returned to Britain remains. In
:21:07. > :21:12.January, after 20 years of investigations, arrests, claims and
:21:12. > :21:16.counter-claims, the trial of Asil Nadir finally got underway. Wearing
:21:16. > :21:21.an electronic tag and with bodyguards in tow, he arrived at
:21:21. > :21:30.the Old Bailey. His liberty and the reputation of the Serious Fraud
:21:30. > :21:34.Office were on the line. A Dad's Army of former directors, financial
:21:34. > :21:39.experts, police of us has and others would give evidence of
:21:39. > :21:46.events that happened 20 years earlier, leading to the raid on
:21:46. > :21:54.Polly Peck. His plush offices in May Fair, he ran things with an
:21:54. > :21:58.autocratic management style. Under a signal -- a single sedentary
:21:58. > :22:03.system, he could move money without any other board member having to
:22:03. > :22:11.countersign. The prosecution said he needed inside help. One of those
:22:11. > :22:18.they say he turns to is this man, now a minister and the government
:22:18. > :22:23.of Northern Cyprus. 20 years ago, he worked in the Treasury
:22:23. > :22:30.Department. He denies allegations he helped Asil Nadir make
:22:30. > :22:35.fraudulent transfers. He recalled what he could remember. He was a
:22:35. > :22:41.man he wanted to succeed in a short term of time when others could not.
:22:41. > :22:51.He had a powerful ego. He had charismatic attributes. It got him
:22:51. > :22:52.
:22:52. > :22:56.into some trouble. Asil Nadir never disputed that he moved Polly Peck's
:22:56. > :23:01.money out of accounts in London. His defence to this complex fraud
:23:01. > :23:06.was very simple. It was all about how business was done in Cyprus
:23:06. > :23:11.back in those days. Asil Nadir always said that before he took any
:23:11. > :23:16.money from the company in London, he had always deposited equivalent
:23:16. > :23:22.amounts of money into company bank accounts here in Northern Cyprus so
:23:22. > :23:26.there could never have been any theft. The justification for that
:23:26. > :23:31.was that Polly Peck in northern Cyprus needed large amounts of the
:23:31. > :23:39.local currency, Turkish lira. His family, and in particularly his
:23:40. > :23:43.mother, Sofia, had that in spades. Under cross-examination, Asil Nadir
:23:43. > :23:49.was asked repeatedly if he could provide evidence of these massive
:23:49. > :23:54.deposits of Turkish leader. He said that it was the custom in northern
:23:54. > :23:59.Cyprus to keep vast stores of cash insecure rooms and will the houses
:23:59. > :24:06.and not to keep records of the deposits. Defence witnesses spoke
:24:06. > :24:12.about ferrying suitcases full of cash to banks. It would have been
:24:12. > :24:17.brought in by her security guards. Even then, we think it is
:24:17. > :24:22.inherently improbable that a number of security guards are going down
:24:22. > :24:28.the street with a number of suitcases containing these are vast
:24:28. > :24:33.amounts of cash. The jury agreed. There verdict of guilty on ten of
:24:33. > :24:37.the 13 counts of theft finally delivered some justice for the
:24:37. > :24:43.victims of the collapse of Polly Peck. That is not how Asil Nadir
:24:43. > :24:49.sees it. Sir than 2000-80,000 people lost their jobs as a result
:24:49. > :24:56.of the downfall of Polly Peck. -- 70,000-80,000. Shareholders lost
:24:56. > :25:02.billions of pounds. How do you feel about that. I was the biggest