Bank clerks face retrial over £2m fraud

Jurors failed to reach verdicts in the case in which Tai Hulbert-Thomas, aged 27, Neil Bautista, aged 22, and Mawli Thurairajah, aged 30, allegedly made a series of transfers using stolen log-in details.
The trial at the Old Bailey heard that the operation allegedly involved planting a computer bug in the conspiracy, which ran from July to September 2012, at Halifax branches in Newbury, Slough and Camden.
Mr Hulbert-Thomas, of Carlton Road, Oxford, denied two counts of fraud by abuse of position involving installing a device to harvest employee log-in details and make fraudulent transfers.
Mr Bautista, of Northumberland Road, Maidenhead, denied making fraudulent payments and of allowing another person to install a device on the bank’s computer.
Mr Thurairajah, of Moelyn Mews, Harrow, London, denied a single charge of making fraudulent payments.
Both Mr Hulbert-Thomas and Mr Bautista claimed they were forced to take part in the fraud by gangsters.
The jury was discharged after failing to reach any verdicts after a five-week trial. All three men face a retrial on January 12 next year.