You may remain seated while I sentence you. I shall first tell you what the sentences are and then give an explanation as to why I have imposed them so that everyone one knows the reasons. You may remain seated why I do so.

Keith you will go to prison for 18 months and be disqualified as a director for three years.

Mackenzie you will go to prison for three years and be disqualified for five years.

Mackay you will go to prison for three years and also be disqualified for five years.

Lowe you will go to prison for two years.

I will deal with prosecution and defence costs at the time of the confiscation proceedings.

Before your convictions on this indictment all four of you were men of some prominence in your respective professional lives and to some extent public figures. When dishonesty and fraud is perpetrated by those to whom others are entitled to look up to by virtue of their position or occupation and who appear to have been successful in their lives, the fall from grave is in some ways more reprehensible and must be dealt with accordingly.

The spectre of prominent members of society behaving in such a dishonest way on this scale, without any apparent hesitation, conscience or remorse, is very unedifying and can only be dealt with by immediate custodial sentences.

You are all mature, intelligent men with no previous convictions and all of you no doubt have in many other ways acted admirably during your lives, but you have now all been found guilty by a jury of serious offences.

It struck me during the trial that you, like so many people who commit business and professional crime, somehow give the impression that you do not believe the rules apply to you and that what you do in your business life is perfectly acceptable. There is, however, only one standard of honesty and it applies to us all. In our system it is for a jury of your peers, having been properly directed as to the law, to decide if your behaviour meets that standard of honesty or not.

In 2003, the Derby County Football Club was clearly undergoing difficulties both on the field and in its financial affairs. Without the enormous and continued support of the Co-Operative Bank, it may have had difficulty surviving unless some benefactor appeared to inject large sums of money. However, the evidence I heard leads me to conclude that whatever steps the bank might have taken they would not have allowed the actual football club to go out of existence.

Keith, having been approached by Mackay, was able through his contacts to have made available to the club a £15m loan which enabled the club to alter its arrangements with the bank and to retain their continued support. If this had been confined to a straight forward brokering arrangement none of you would have been in this court. Whether or not the written agreements dated 26 June were sham agreements to cover a different plan is of little consequence as is the exact time of decision to become owners of the club and to reward yourselves with the club’s money.

There was evidence that Mackenzie and Mackay had been considering taking over the club and becoming shareholders and within a very short time of Keith being involved, even if the agreement of 26th June was to be considered a genuine simple brokering deal it very rapidly became a plan to take over ownership and control. It is the fact that the loan was available resulted in the Co-Op Bank briefly taking into administration the holding company of the club which enabled the three of you to become controllers of the club for the sum of £3m.

I do accept it gave the club a breathing space, but the evidence of other interested parties and the evidence that two other owners or group of owners have come forward since your departure shows that the club would have survived without your intervention. It is a famous club; I was told it was one of the original members of the League; the chances of it vanishing were remote.

I turn to your individual positions and mitigation.

Mr Mackenzie you were a management accountant by profession working for a number of reputable companies. From 1995 until these matters came to light you were the highly respected and trusted finance director of a famous football club, indeed one witness described you as “Mr Derby”.

Whether you will face disciplinary proceedings from your professional body I do not know, but your counsel said it was likely. Your present employer is willingly to continue to employ you in spite of your conviction.

I have over the weekend read again five letters submitted and the three character witness statements put in during the trial as well as two reports, one being the pre-sentence report and in the other in particular paragraph 11.3.

I have also re-read your affidavit of means. Undoubtedly your financial position has been severely affected since your arrest for these offences and the court cannot be other than concerned at the possible effect on your family of you going to prison. Sadly, in many or even most cases when defendants have to go to prison, it is the close members of their family who are the real sufferers, However the court must perform its sworn duty and while it will take these matters into account, it is only in the most exceptional of cases that it can result in custody being avoided; this is not one of those cases.

Your counsel submitted that the sums involved would not result in public disapproval or outrage if you were not sent to prison; whether or not this is so, I do not know. I suspect the fans of Derby County Football Club might be outraged but this court does not sentence on the basis of public disapproval or outrage, it has to sentence in accordance with the law and the guidance it is given by the Court of Appeal.

I accept that your crime was not aggravated by there being vulnerable victims and public funds are not involved, however the sum defrauded was on the way to being half a million pounds.

As the club’s financial director you had a duty to make sure the club’s finances were properly looked after. In the later part of 2003 it was still in a perilous financial state and to defraud them of this sum was a gross breach of trust. You appear to show no remorse or acknowledgement of your dishonesty.

The creation of the letter of June 2 to give a veneer of authenticity to use of Streamline and attempts to suggest that it was part of some agreement with the late Mr Pickering shows the depth of your dishonesty and reinforces my earlier comment that you appear to consider the rules do not apply to you.

The authorities show that for offences of dishonesty involving sums at this level the staring point after a trial and before aggravating and mitigating factors are taken into account would be in the region of at least four years.

I have taken into account that you have no previous convictions and your previous positive good character and good works.

Mr Mackay you carved a prominent place for yourself in the football world. It would be wrong to treat you differently to Mackenzie even though you are the least attractive of the two of you; you did not even pay all that was due to your co-conspirator, or indeed pay the VAT element to C&E and put in a false VAT Return. You beguiled the unfortunate Mr Waters to become involved and although he has the comfort of being found not guilty by the jury, he has had to suffer the long ordeal of his trial. You have little regard for those you beguile; obtaining large sums of money from both Mr Sleightholme and Mr Waters and your unattractive plea to the jury that that what you did was ok in the football world was quite understandably rejected by them.

The standards of honesty must be and indeed are the same in whatever walk of life you come from and whatever trade, work or profession you follow.

You show no remorse or acknowledgement of your dishonesty.

You also give the impression that you do not think the rules apply to you.

I have re-read the file of 20 character statements, the pre-sentence report and your affidavit of means. They show the financial effect, not only on you but on your family, following your arrest. They show the effect and possible effect of your absence on the close members of your family and speak of your good works in football. I do not repeat what I said about this when dealing with Mackenzie but the same applies to you.

Your counsel submits that this shows you were not ‘a fast buck fraudster’, his words. The evidence in this case shows otherwise.

He also submits that the only safe basis to sentence you, because of Keith’s acquittal on count one, is that the jury must have concluded he was entitled to his £125,000 + VAT and that it follows they must have concluded you were also entitled to yours and that the fraud was merely a retaining £125,000 for Mackenzie. It is always dangerous to draw any such conclusions from a jury’s verdict. Keith’s case was that he did not know anything about the Streamline invoice until he was told that was how he was to be paid. There was no evidence to contradict this. The jury acquitted him of conspiracy to defraud but convicted him of count three. I do not conclude that they concluded either of you were entitled to anything.

Mr Keith, you had had a successful business career before you became in effect the Chief Executive of the Derby County Football Club.

In your case as well, I have re-read the documents and while the affect of your behaviour have caused some detrimental effect to your finances and may have an affect on your close family, the comments I have made on this apply to you as well.

The jury found you not guilty of conspiracy to defraud but found that you were a party to the falsification of the Streamline invoice done dishonestly.

I give full acknowledgement to those verdicts and it follows that the conspiracy to defraud was a creature of Mackenzie and Mackay but you were a willing party to falsifying the Streamline invoice and paying the monies to them.

I must properly reflect the fact that you were acquitted on count one. However you were a party to the dishonest use of the Streamline invoice which enabled the money to be obtained. I note in the pre-sentence report that you told the probation officer that you can understand why the jury viewed it as dishonest and to that extent there are the beginnings of an acknowledgment by you of your dishonesty.

However, being in effect the chief executive of the club and a director your actions were a serious breach of your duties and shows you are clearly unfit to be a director of a company. To disqualify you would be far from using a sledge hammer to crack a nut as suggested by your counsel.

As with the others your failure to disclose and pay the VAT to C&E also shows that you do not think the rules apply to you.

I have been urged to suspend the sentence, this being dealt with under the pre Criminal Justice Act 2003 law. The grounds submitted by your Counsel do not amount to exceptional circumstances which would justify such a suspension.

Mr Lowe, you were admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court in 1978 and gave up your practicing certificate in October 2002, before these matters, You were the chairman of a public company.

I have re-read very carefully the mitigation file which was delivered to the court. It gives me no pleasure to see a lawyer, who by virtue of his profession should be regarded as totally trustworthy, awaiting to be sentenced for money laundering. You were earning, according to the documents before me, very large sums of money during your professional life. You had the appearance of a very wealthy life style; living in Monaco with a yacht at your disposal.

I am told that as a result of your arrest and now your conviction you will be unlikely to be able to regain your high-earning position. It is suggested that your current liabilities exceed your current assets. That will be investigated in the confiscation proceedings, but I accept that your financial position has been affected by your arrest. You will in all probability face disciplinary proceedings from your professional body.

I am surprised to be told that you will not loose your position as a Wimbledon Steward. I would have thought a money-laundering solicitor was not much of a role model, but that is a matter for your association.

Again you do not seem to think the rules apply to you. One only has to listen to your interviews to see your attitude. At least you chose not to give evidence, a matter which does not surprise me, and so you have not been found by a jury to be an unbelievable witness when giving evidence.

You, better than anyone else, should know the seriousness of money laundering. You tried very hard to cover it all up once it came to light but, unfortunately for you, very incriminating documents were found on your computer. I suspect you never thought the investigating officers would bother to visit Monaco and recover the material.

His Honour Judge Ian Alexander QC