Jim Armitage: Justice delayed this long is like justice denied for victims

One question victims of the HBOS Reading scandal will be asking after today’s scathing report from the Financial Conduct Authority: why did it take so long?

It is well over two years since those who perpetrated these crimes on the small businesses they milked and destroyed were sent to jail. It is well over a decade since their crimes were first reported in the press.

Yet only today do we get a fine on their former employer. Only today are they barred from finance. How they must be quaking in their prison-issue boots.

In fairness to the FCA, it did have to leave matters to Thames Valley police while the criminal inquiry was going on. But given so much of that evidence became available when sentences were handed down in February 2017, it is inexplicable it could take all these years for today’s conclusions to be drawn and fines levied.

Along the way, we’ve seen whistleblower Sally Masterton claiming her complaints to the FCA were ignored, allegations of further wrongdoing at branches beyond Reading and ongoing claims of Lloyds’ failings in providing redress.

Today’s work from the FCA fails to deal with any of that. In fact, the behaviour of Lloyds after merging with the collapsed HBOS in January 2009 is almost entirely absent, having been excluded from the terms of the investigation.

It’s possible more will follow from the FCA. Lloyds has a judge, Dame Linda Dobbs, looking into the handling of its Reading inheritance. One presumes any wrongdoing will be probed by the regulator.

But for scores of business owners ruined by Bank of Scotland all those years ago, it will all seem like too little, too late.