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The Carson Trial – Day 1
Carson’s trial for money laundering started today in Wan Chai with an application from his barrister to have the trial stopped as it was an “abuse of process”. The trial, which is set to last 25 days minimum has already been adjourned until Friday as the judge considers the application.
After pleading not guilty to five charges of money laundering, Carson’s barrister Graham Harris SC confirmed Yeung’s application to have the trial thrown out due to Carson not being allowed to defend himself properly. The defence counsel put it to the court that due to the length of time that the police investigation has taken, it is nearly impossible for Carson to get the information he requires to defend himself from the relevant financial institutions.
The prosecution have alleged that there was 720milHKD (around £60mil) of suspicious transactions between 2001 and 2007 involving five bank accounts controlled by Carson. As financial institutions routinely destroy documents more than seven years old, the defence have said that it was almost impossible for Carson to get information on some of the transactions from the brokers involved and that the police had unnecessarily delayed arresting him. It was confirmed that the police in Hong Kong began their investigations into Carson in 2007, and ordered banks to give details of transactions in 2008 before arresting him on June 29 2011.
However, after the John Reading, SC for the prosecution put it to the court that the brokers named by the defence counsel had had minimal transactions with Carson, Harris then advised the court that there was substantial cash transactions in that time period involving up to 100million HKD (circa £8mil) that was almost impossible to account for and that that would seriously hamper Carson’s defence.
His Honour, Judge Douglas Yau, presiding adjourned the trial until Friday 9:30am HK time to consider the detailed written submissions and make a ruling.
Tags: Carson Yeung, The Trial
35 Responses to “The Carson Trial – Day 1”
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here we go again, its just gonna drag on and on and on and on and on.
totally boring the pants off me this trial, had enough off it now.
KRO.( KEEP RAMBLING ON.)
The fact that the judge has adjourned until Friday suggests Yeungs appeal has credence to be considered.
Technicality or not, and whether Bluenoses like it or not, if Yeung is unable to provide his defence due to the time delay, the case should be thrown out.
Surely its for the judge to decide, that’s why he is considering the appeal.
There is the law and then there’s justice; rarely do they coincide!
So what are you and the lad going to do till Friday OP kro4ever
If that were me…….drink heavily.
Firstly, a time delay isn’t a good enough excuse not to be able to gather documents for your defence, if your business and personal ducumentation is in order. If he hasn’t got time, that’s his fault. Secondly, this farce has gone on too long. If Yeung thinks the police has taken to long, why isn’t he allowed to put in the application before the trial begins? We now have the situation where the judge needs time to consider the application after the trail started instead of doing it before it began. Meanwhile the uncertainty drags on with one definite innocent party suffering, i.e BCFC
Its just more prevarication to avoid taking his punishment,,,,and prolonging our misery,,,,,Yeung may not want to disclose to the court what he has done,,,,,but his investor,s have even more need of the information as to what he has done with their moneys,,,,,,these records exsist !,,,,,,,if only like those hidden items in the B.I.H and B.C.F.C accounts they are there to be found !!.
Enjoy your time out there AJ, but remember DONT DRINK THE LOCAL WATER !!,,,,,be a good brummie !! stick to the BEER !!
Nice pic you took! Was in the mail. It also said in the mail – Yeung has insisted he will continue to support the club financially throughout his legal problems. How can he do that?
Could be a TKO in round 1 then. Although I doubt it, this is a defence tactic to put in the judge’s mind right from the off that this is ancient history and been sat on.
But what’s most concerning is that “the police in Hong Kong began their investigations into Carson in 2007, and ordered banks to give details of transactions in 2008 before arresting him on June 29 2011”. Just what due diligence did the Premier League do on his FPP application? And how much does that explain why he was willing to pay OTT to get money out of HK?
Also, and this might be quite important, Sullivan/Golds must have done the same due diligence vis a vis money laundering regulations. They would not want to be tabbed with taking millions from a suspected launderer.
I don’t think the HK police would confide in the Premier League when looking for evidence of money laundering. If the Premier League(and I doubt they did) approached the HK police for a statement on CY, I imagine the response would have been “No Comment”
Surely the Premier League’s F&PPT is there to get as full of a background picture on a potential new owner of a football club. Granted the police wouldn’t be expected to phone the PL & inform them of what at the time was an ongoing investigation but surely it wouldn’t have taken much research from the PL to find out that CY was under investigation. Equally whilst the police wouldn’t want the PL to announce that CY has failed the F&PPT based on the ongoing investigation I’m sure the PL would still look to announce that CY had failed the F&PPT as they’d also look to protect their own interest which of course is the global image of the PL. Overall I’d imagin IF the ground work had been done properly in the first place then CY would’ve failed the F&PPT and the investigation would’ve still been able to be kept under wraps until the police had concluded their investigation and was ready to make their next move.
For me personally this information surely raises a whole new list of questions for the PL & F&PPT group to answer to as they’ve seriously sold us down the swanny
Sullivan and Gold won’t give a stuff
Don’t worry DaddyBlue, Matt has had his instuctions & a shopping list from his 5 year old neice about what to do until Friday
So Yeung says he hasn’t got his bank statements because they’re routinely destroyed after seven years. But the police first started asking him for paperwork in 2008, which means he ought to have had the relevant files going back to 2001 — that is, if he was being sensible about his affairs.
It smells fishy.
What are you going to do for the rest of the week Al? Bit of time now to make that video for the Mail.
No, the way i read it is the first CY knew about any laundering investigation was when he was arrested in 2011. I don’t think the police asked CY for any paperwork, whether in 2008 or 2011.
Does anyone else read it as I do?
If CY is complaining that his defence evidence is no longer available, then surely the prosecution evidence cant exist either. So what’s the problem??
The prosecution have stated that they believe £60m worth of transactions passed through five of CY’s accounts from 2001 to 2007, which are thought to be circumspect. They say that there is the hallmarks of money-laundering attached to them.
CY’s lawyers have said that the money was legitimate and the result of stock-trading but unfortunately they cannot confirm this due to the companies involved having destroyed their associated documents due to their 7 year expiry rule. They also claim that the prosecution had ample time to bring charges but sat on them for whatever reason and thus have denied the opportunity to CY to mount an adequate defence.
The prosecutor has said that the companies which handled CY’s stock-trading and are being quoted as the ones who would have verified the transactions in his accounts and cannot do so now as mentioned by CY’s team, were on the periphery at best, and cannot really be counted on as a main reason for the case to be struck out.
The defence should also provide details of past transactions in CY’s finances where large amounts of regular cash passed through his accounts to prove that this was nothing out of the ordinary for him, and also show sources of where these finances were obtained from.
In response to this the prosecution could ask the question that did CY not retain any of his associated paperwork and why did he not declare the money on his tax returns??
No wonder it could be ages and ages before anything is actually decided and ruled upon.
Hopefully someone or some group might want to speak to almajir in HK to ask about BCFC informally and get an informed fan’s idea of what the club can offer any possible suitors.
To be honest, I would expect CY to have his accounts audited annually and I find that the defence of having lost evidence of transactions valued at many millions of pounds somewhat implausible. Its not as though they were last century and for pennies. I have records of very low level transactions of mine dating back to the early 90’s! However, if the case is thrown out, then surely this would be a possible result for Blues as we can then move swiftly on to the next point on the agenda!!??
That’s where he may fall down and get schtuck – that not having access to some of these so-called ‘lost’ documents is the basis of his attempt to get the case thrown out .If it doesn’t happen and it proceeds, then who know’s what evidence the prosecution will present. It’s a technicality and it will all depend on how the judge translates this as having a bearing on the defence. The other thing is he may try and plea-bargain and agree to a substantial fine or penalty with perhaps a suspended sentence??
Something quite serious happened between 2001-07 with this figure of £60m; who paid it in, where, how and who was the eventual recipient??
Could CY’s departed father get a substantial portion of the blame?? Can CY show that he had legitimate reasons to pass vast amounts of cash through his accounts??
If he has casinos and hotels as argued and stated previously, are they reason enough not to question the source of the monies passing through his accounts??
There is no question it is complex, and perhaps that is why new anti-money laundering law was brought in by the HK authorities last year.
But for our club the uncertainty continues.
It was Yeung and his lawyers who asked for, (and got ), more time to prepare their defence,so why are they now blaming the police investigation,for taking so long ? After one day the trial has been adjourned ? The Hong Kong justice system needs to get its act together !
Good point John. Surely anyone in business has records of big wodges of cash chaging hands — it’s not like they’re asking Yeung for evidence of the fiver he gave the windowcleaner.
On a more positive note,nice mention for OP & ‘blues blogger’ Almajir on talksport-courtesy of Ian Danter.
So if it gets thrown out which it won’t
does that then mean CY will have this endless pit of money tucked away??
I asked a similar question a few weeks ago. That if he IS found innocent and his assets unfrozen, won’t the dosh in the bank have acrued a load of interest in 2 years?
nice one Dan on the money again, got to give that one to carson, carson leading one nil ……
what a goal straight the middle to the judge took them all by surprise, they definately didn’t see that coming…….open goal could be a winner……..c’mon carson….we waiting to go to the field of dreams……kro.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
do we want CY to be found guilty or not guilty?
The documents can not be ‘lost’. Certainly paper document destruction does take place in some financial firms after 7 years but the trend is more towards off-site storage in the event of retrieval calls, such as in Court cases. Irrespective of this, the electronic form of the documents will still be available. Data created the paper documents and the data still exists; since around 2000 no banks have had to destroy electronic data because the volume of data storage exceeds the amount of data archived and created. It’s a weak claim and no doubt Carson’s defence knows this; but it is the first of what will become many technical challenges to wear the prosecution case down.
[…] morning back at court to see how proceedings go. For details on the case, please refer back to Often Partisans article, who will explain the situation in greater […]
For those of you labouring under the misapprehension that the fit and proper person test is a Premier League initiative, it’s not.
It is a Football League process.
Thanks
Actually Paul, it’s both – it depends what league you are in.
Surely the issue has to be if found not guilty- would he have the money any longer, would authorities be looking for anything else (lets face Pannu has shown there are some odd dealings taking place) and more to the point would he want to help the club to any massive degree, as he has clearly got an idea of how fans feel about what has happened due to him…?
Dan, thanks for being there and relaying any news, good or bad. The info you provided already over the last couple of years regarding this case has been top draw.
Most of the information we would rather not be hearing but it’s better to be educated than it is to be kept in the dark and speculate over what may be happening. KRO