Ernest Saunders
Ernest Walter Saunders (born October 21, 1935) was a business manager and is a convicted fraudster.
He was married in 1963 to Carole Ann Stephings with two sons and one daughter, and was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
He had a career in management with Beecham, Great Universal Stores and Nestlé before becoming Chief Executive of Guinness plc (1981-1986).
Saunders (along with Isidore Jack Lyons, Anthony Keith Parnes and Gerald Maurice Ronson) was convicted on August 27, 1990 of counts of conspiracy to contravene section 13(1)(a)(i) of the Prevention of Fraud (Investments) Act 1958, false accounting and theft, in relation to dishonest conduct in a share support operation during Guinness plc's takeover bid for United Distillers plc early in 1986. A series of appeals were finally dismissed in December 2002.
Saunders appealed against his sentence of five years in prison, and on May 16 1991, the sentence was reduced to two and a half years. Lord Justice Neill said that he was satisfied, "on the balance of probabilities", that Saunders was suffering from pre-senile dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease, which is incurable. With full parole, Saunders was released from prison on June 28 1991.
After release, he recovered from the symptoms which led to this diagnosis. In an interview with The Times published in January 1992 Saunders claimed the symptoms were a result of a "cocktail of tranquilisers and sleeping tablets" which he had been prescribed, and that he was making a good recovery. It is frequently asserted that Saunders procured his early release by pretending to have Alzheimer's disease (this was once done by BBC satirical TV show Have I Got News For You: they were forced to apologise on-air, and did so via the host, Angus Deayton. Deayton then promptly called Saunders a swindler and a con-artist).
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