Lawyers for Carl Cushnie, the convicted trade finance fraudster, will today seek to have his six-year prison sentence reduced to a community service order - only two days after it was handed down.
The bold terms of the proposed appeal rely on the fact that a jury last month found Cushnie not guilty of involvement in a Ј750m fraud orchestrated by Fred Clough, finance director at Versailles Group, a FTSE-250 company founded and run by Cushnie.
The jury, nevertheless, convicted Cushnie on a second parallel count of conspiracy to defraud relating to a private company, Versailles Traders, set up by Cushnie with the backing of a number of wealthy individuals.
Alex Cameron QC is expected to argue that, on the basis of the jury's two verdicts, Cushnie cannot be said to have had any knowledge of the fraudulent use of funds from the Traders business while they were under management at Versailles Group.
