A fraudbuster at the London Stock Exchange was tod

A fraudbuster at the London Stock Exchange was today (Tues) cleared of being a member of an insider dealing ring.

Anthony Hadnutt, 29, admitted he passed on price sensitive information to stock market colleague Stephen Porter.

But he maintained he did not do so for financial gain.

Jurors heard tapes of Porter, a convicted insider dealer, saying he needed to ‘sort out some money for Tony’.

But Hadnutt told Blackfriars Crown Court the ‘money’ referred to was a month’s deposit and a month’s rent on a flat they planned to share in Essex.

Hadnutt accepted that he wrongly passed on a tip about engineering company David Brown plc to Porter over lunch in a pub.

He said he felt his position was ‘deeply compromised’ after his friend passed it on to other investors.

But after two and a half hours deliberation, the jury accepted Hadnutt’s defence that he had passed on the information not knowing it would be used for others to trade on.

Giving evidence Hadnutt said he invited Porter to lunch on 15 October 1997.

Over a few beers, he said gearbox maker David Brown was to announce on October 21, 1997, that it was buying a US firm, the Union Pump Company.

The next day Porter phoned Hadnutt to inform him he had tipped off ‘others’ to buy David Brown shares.

Paul Ozin, prosecuting, said it was a matter of common sense, that ‘news of the acquisition played a part in Mr Porter’s advice.

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But Hadnutt, who agreed he was ‘deeply compromised’ by Porter’s actions.

replied: ‘He may have used it, but I didn’t know that.

‘He put me in a position where I could lose my job, and that was what I was annoyed about,’ Hadnutt said.

Hadnutt’s fears were well founded as he was fired from the stock exchange in December 1997.

Coventry-based trader, Dilip Chohan, used the information supplied by Porter – via a third man, Wayne Daw – to buy David Brown shares worth pnds stlg 11,000.

But Hadnutt’s tip fell flat because the company took a month longer to make the announcement than expected.

And Chohan lost pnds stlg 900 on the deal as a result.

Hadnutt had worked his way up from a clerk after leaving school at the age of 16.

A friend of Hadnutt said in a character reference he came from ‘an area of Essex where underachievement was the norm.

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After he was sacked in December 1997, he found it very difficult to get another job as the LSE refused to write him a character reference.

Porter and Daw were charged with insider dealing in relation to this matter, but the matter was left to lie on the file after they pleaded guilty to another insider dealing offence.

Chohan was also charged, but was found not guilty after the prosecution offered no evidence.

Anthony Dalgleish, defending Hadnutt, commented that the Crown’s decision to not prosecute Porter and Daw meant the trial against his client was like ‘Hamlet
without the Prince’.

He said: ‘The prosecution decided it could not be bothered to have a trial with them.

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And despite having three years and three months to bring the case to court Mr Dalgleish said that far from producing some ‘wonderful case’ the prosecuting authorities ‘have produced a mouse, and it hasn’t got much of a squeak to it.

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Hadnutt, of (8) Keats Avenue, Romford, Essex, was cleared by the jury of one charge of insider dealing on October 15, 1997.

Earlier this year Chohan, of (6) Stonehaven Drive, Finham, Coventry, was cleared of two charges of insider dealing relating to; 35,000 shares in hotel group Forte plc on 21 November 1995, and 2,000 shares in South West Water plc on 25 October 1996.

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