Banker jailed for manipulating interest rates to have criminal case reviewed
Tom Hayes, the first banker to be jailed for rigging interest rates, is due to have his conviction reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), a body set up to review allegations of miscarriages of justice.
In the 2015, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) named Mr Hayes as the 'ringmaster' of an international conspiracy to rig interest rates. The former UBS trader was found guilty of manipulating Libor, the benchmark that tracks the interest rates that banks pay to borrow cash from one another. He subsequently became the first UK banker to be jailed since the financial crash, receiving an 11-year jail sentence.
Mr Hayes served the first half of his sentence, before being released in February 2021. Speaking in an interview with the BBC, Hayes claimed that fresh evidence would demonstrate that his original conviction was unsafe.
"I don't blame the jury for it but they were presented with a false narrative and they reached a conclusion based on those facts. I believe had they been presented with full evidence they would have reached a very different conclusion".
The new evidence being presented is part of eight grounds of appeal now being examined by the CCRC.
Mr Hayes' case raises further questions about more than 20 other cases and some of the only bankers to have been prosecuted in the UK since the financial crash.
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