Ernest Saunders
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Ernest Walter Saunders (born October 21, 1935) was a British business manager, best known as one of the "Guinness Four" convicted fraudsters.
He was born Ernest Walter Schleyer in Austria and moved to the United Kingdom in 1938 when his parents emigrated to escape Nazi rule and anglicized their surname. He was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and was married in 1963 to Carole Ann Stephings with two sons and one daughter.
He had a career in management with Beecham, Great Universal Stores and Nestlé before becoming Chief Executive of Guinness plc (now Diageo) from 1981 to 1986. He was renowned for his ruthless cost-cutting efficiency, earning from his employees the sobriquet "Deadly Ernest".
Under his charge Guinness plc launched a takeover bid for Edinburgh-based United Distillers plc early in 1986. Subsequent to the bid, which resulted in success for Guinness, Saunders (along with Isidore Jack Lyons, Anthony Keith Parnes and Gerald Maurice Ronson) was charged and convicted on 27 August 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. A series of appeals was finally dismissed in December 2002.
While there was no suggestion that Saunders sought to or actually did profit from these offences in an immediate or direct manner, the allegation was that they were committed to make the company's takeover bid more likely to succeed. Something which would clearly and directly benefit Saunders and his associates financially in the long run.
Saunders appealed against his sentence of five years in prison, and on 16 May 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 28 June 1991 having served only 10 months of his sentence.
After release, he recovered from the symptoms which had led to the 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 notably done by the 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. A statement for which he did not have to apologise.
Since then Saunders has been in demand as a business consultant, especially after his success advising Carphone Warehouse from its early days until prior to its flotation. Carphone is one of the most successful retailers of mobile telephony in Europe.