Another account of 'The Natwest Three' fraud case hits bookshops

David Bermingham's book – A Price To Pay: The Inside Story of the NatWest Three, comes two months after the publication of Gang of One by his former boss, Gary Mulgrew

The NatWest Three, Giles Darby, David Bermingham and Gary Mulgrew (l-r) outside the high court, 21 February 2006, after losing their battle against extradition to the United States. Photograph Edmond Terakopian/PA

This week a second member of the convicted trio of British bank fraudsters who style themselves "The NatWest Three" has broken his silence and published a book about his experiences — A Price To Pay: The Inside Story of the NatWest Three (Gibson Square, £8.99). David Bermingham's book follows two months after the publication of Gang of One (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99) by his former boss, Gary Mulgrew.

Bermingham, Mulgrew and their former NatWest structured finance colleague Giles Darby have spent much of the last decade in a doomed battle against extradition requests from the US's Enron Task Force and, later, reflecting on their actions from jail cells, first in Texas and later in Ford open prison in Sussex.

There can be no question they have paid a price for their role in helping construct some of the rotten, murky off-balance-sheet deals for which top Enron executives became notorious. Deals from which, they admitted to a Houston courtroom in 2007, they fraudulently profited to the tune of $7.3m (£4m).

But five years on, having exited the legal system, the retelling perhaps predictably paints events in an altogether rosier light. The books contain only very cursory admissions of shortcomings – greed and vanity the chief among them – preferring to talk about failures to notify NatWest of potential "conflicts of interest" rather than dwell on dishonest plotting.

In 2006, the case became a cause celebre in the British financial press, as the plight of the three men – then protesting their innocence – was seen as evidence of imbalances in new extradition arrangements with the US. There had been others shipped into the hands of US prosecutors before them, but the NatWest three had the connections and resources to marshall a very noisy fight.

Such was the strength of feeling behind them that their campaign against extradition won the backing of British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, GlaxoSmithKline chairman Sir Chris Gent, ICAP chief executive Michael Spencer, retail tycoon Philip Green and London Stock Exchange chairman Chris Gibson-Smith.

At the time, Bermingham said: "We have effectively been subjected to a two-year sentence of imprisonment and bankruptcy even before we have had the chance to challenge the evidence against us". However, of course, when his chance did eventually come in a Texas courtroom he and his co-defendants chose not to take it, pleading guilty to one count of wire fraud and accepting they deserved to receive a 37-month prison sentence having defrauded their employer of $7.3m.

In sentencing, Judge Werlein wryly noted he had been "impressed by the large amount of support each of you have been given by people who see your favourable qualities".

Somehow this case still seems to live on in the British popular memory as some kind of miscarriage of justice. It was nothing of the sort. As the then director of the Serious Fraud Office said, the case for extradition, was – on any measure – overwhelming. Far from being disapproving of the actions of US prosecutors we might do well to draw lessons from the determination shown in tracking down and prosecuting white collar criminals wherever they might be.