UK: an honourable man to take the rap for dishonourable activity

The High Court in London has found that "the abject surrender to a blatant threat."

But the Court found that Robert Wardle, the director of the Serious Fraud Office didn't do enough to resist the threat. "The director was required to satisfy the court that all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat. He has failed to do so."

That provides an out for Tony Blair and his Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. They said that the decision to cancel the investigation into BAe's sale of jets to the Saudi Arabian government was Wardle's alone - although the reality is that Wardle's position was untenable: as the head of a law enforcement agency, one does not refuse to follow the "suggestions" of the prime minister and the head of the government's legal advice service.

Wardle's body language when he announced the withdrawal of the case was most unlike him. He was stiff and abrupt. He was not quite speaking through clenched teeth, but it was close.

Minutes later, Lord Goldsmith stood up in Parliament a few minutes later and announced what he said was the SFO's decision.

The action was, in fact, an action by two pressure groups and Wardle. It did not involve Blair, Goldsmith or BAe.

So the only person who has come out of this covered in bad stuff is the one man who compromised his own honour to protect that of dishonourable people.

And that's a shame.