Tesco fraud trial is axed

A MULTI-MILLION pound fraud trial involving three former Tesco executives has been abandoned after one of them suffered a heart attack.

Carl Rogberg, the 51-year-old ex-finance director of Tesco UK, was taken to hospital last week.

Rogberg was standing trial alongside Chris Bush, 52, former managing director of Tesco UK, and John Scouler, 49, former UK food commercial director, at Southwark Crown Court.

Judge Deborah Taylor, who was due to begin her summing up of the case, instead discharged the jury, saying it would not be right and proper to continue.

All three were accused of fraud and false accounting.

Lawyers estimate the cost of the four-month trial, which had been dogged by delays, at up to £10million.

Speaking outside court, Rogberg’s lawyer Neil O’May said his client was “devastated at the news that the trial has been aborted”.

The Serious Fraud Office are now considering whether the case should go to a retrial.

A decision is expected by March 2, with the earliest possible start date being in September. STRUGGLING fashion firm New Look are preparing for “substantial” cost cuts after revealing heavy losses.

The high street chain have already earmarked £25million of cutbacks, partly from marketing.

But new executive chairman Alistair McGeorge said: “We have further substantial cost savings that we will be making.”

Reports say they could close 60 of their 600 stores through a Company Voluntary Arrangement. Another option could be to ask store landlords for rent reduction, but nothing has been decided.

New Look announced group sales dropped 6.3 per cent to under £1.1billion in the nine months to December 23, with UK sales down 10.7 per cent. They went from a £29million profit to a £123.5million loss after an unprecedented wave of discounting to get shot of unwanted stock. McGeorge admitted the chain lost their way by chasing younger shoppers at the expense of core customers. “The company went completely off piste and we need to get back on the slope,” he said.