Ex-Norton CEO Stuart Garner has been sentenced. Garner pleaded guilty to three charges of breaching pension regulations after illegally investing approximately £11,000,000 of people’s pensions into Norton Motorcycles.
法官Nirmal Shant QC handed down an eight-month prison term but suspended it for two years. The suspended sentence means that he will not go to prison unless Garner commits another offense within two years.
In handing down the sentence, Shant told Garner:
“This is not just financial harm.”
“我已经阅读了您对认为自己未来投资的普通百姓生活所做的创伤的声明。”
“Many of them spoke of broken relationships, profound ill health, and having to face the misery of having to work much longer than they planned because of the financial damage you have done.”
除了暂停监狱期限外，Shant还命令Garner支付20,716.69英镑的费用。但是，由于Garner在2021年5月宣布破产，这笔款项可能会无偿。
不幸的是,sentancing handed down will likely do little good for the people affected by Garner’s crimes.In June 2020, the Pension Ombudsman ordered Garner to pay back millions欠养老金持有人的磅。
According toBBC News, 227 investors got caught up in Garner’s pension scheme. As of January 2020, the affected people were still owed £10,000,000.
诺顿的新设施现在已属于电视。图片来源：诺顿摩托车
人们受到影响
One of those people was Robert Dewar. Mr. Dewar transferred £120,000 (~ $158,000) to Garner’s pension scheme and ultimately lost all of it. While the money was in Garner’s scheme, Mr. Dewar was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and later died without getting his money back.
His daughter, Sally Holmes, told the BBC she’d been trying for three years before her father’s death to release her father’s pension money, but to no avail.
“I just don’t know how [Garner] can live with himself.
“Because it’s not just us. How can he have done that to so many vulnerable people, who trusted him, had faith in him, believed in him?”
To make ends meet, Mr. Dewar’s wife was forced to take over his work as a self-employed commercial property agent while trying to care for her husband.
“他的病情恶化，到最后他只能移动双手，甚至可以移动。He needed help eating, drinking, washing, dressing.”
After Mr. Dewar passed away, his pension money was still not returned. The BBC quotes Mrs. Dewar as saying:
“I even sent him [Stuart Garner] an email saying ‘He has died now, it’s too late for us, this is the condition that he died in. All we wanted was to be able to look after him. He never responded.”
William Hays, representing the Pensions Regulator that prosecuted Garner, offered more about some of Garner’s victims. He said that the loss of the pension funds had caused considerable hardship for those who have been unable to withdraw it.
他说，有些人无法支付抵押贷款，被迫继续工作比计划更长的时间。其他人却遇到了心理困难，婚姻困难，压力，睡眠问题以及失去信任和自我怀疑。
Garner a victim?
To some, comments from Garner’s barrister, Peter Caldwell, may appear to try to make Garner a victim.According to the BBC, Caldwell said Garner had “fallen from grace and suffered serious mental health crises due to what happened.”
“他一直在服药。”
“He is, in his own words, ‘trying to deal with it’. There are acute episodes where he needs help.”
Interestingly, Caldwell claims that Garner did not know he was doing wrong, and supposedly his claim was accepted by the prosecution.
“This was not a position where he knew of the restriction and nonetheless went and did what he did. He didn’t.”
Caldwell also said that Garner is remorseful for his actions:
“您的荣誉应该理解他真诚地将自己的re悔传达给您和他人。
考德威尔说，加纳在宣布破产之前亲自向养老金计划成员支付了30,000英镑的款项。
受害者受害吗?
While Garner did plead guilty, he only received a suspended sentence. He’ll be free to go about his daily life with no repercussions to his freedom. So, are his victims receiving justice, or are they being victimized once again? Considering Garner’s bankruptcy, it’s not clear whether he will be required or able to pay back his victims in full or even make partial payments to them.
Some, like Mr. Dewar, will never receive justice now that he has passed away. Perhaps his family may receive some compensation in the future, but it’s of little value to the man who lived out his last years, unable to access the money that could have made his dying years more comfortable for him and his family.
