OCTOBER 27, 1997

Ball goes to jail

TED BALL, who financed the Brabham and Lotus Formula 1 teams in the early 1990s has been jailed for three years at the Old Bailey in London, having admitted that he defrauded millions of dollars from banks simply in order to fund his passion for Grand Prix racing. Ball admitted receiving $630,000 in payments from Brabham to continue to pour money into the team from Landhurst Leasing, the company he was running at the time. In order to raise the money Ball and his co-defendant DavidÊAshworth had to doctor the financial records of the public company, which crashed in 1992 with $75m missing from the books.

The judge also ruled that both should be disqualified from being a director of a company for eight years. Ball and Ashworth were arrested after a three-year investigation into their activities by the Serious Fraud Office.