Banker jailed for £2.15m insider trading, Littlewoods' confiscation orders would be dealt with at a later date. The three pleaded guilty to reaping £590,000 from the trades involved in the case

FT.com / UK / Business - Banker jailed for £2.15m insider trading: "An investment banker who tried to pin blame for a £2.15m insider dealing scam on his wife and her friend has been jailed in what a judge described as the “biggest prosecution for insider trading ever brought” in Britain.

Christian Littlewood, 37, who received an annual salary of more than £350,000 at Dresdner Kleinwort , has been jailed for three years and four months.His Singaporean-born wife, Angie, received a suspended prison sentence. Her friend, Helmy Omar Sa’aid, who helped the couple in their eight years of insider trading, was sentenced to two years in prison and faces deportation."

 Christian Littlewood, a former Dresdner Kleinwort investment banker, was sentenced Wednesday to serve three years and four months in prison, the longest custodial sentence yet for insider dealing in the U.K.

Mr. Littlewood, his wife and a family friend had previously pleaded guilty to eight counts of trading on insider information ahead of market-moving company announcements, over a period stretching nearly a decade. Angie Littlewood on Wednesday was sentenced to a suspended one-year custodial sentence. Helmy Omar Sa'aid was sentenced to two years in custody and ordered to pay £640,000 ($1.0 million) in confiscation.

The U.K. Financial Services Authority, which brought the cases, said the Littlewoods' confiscation orders would be dealt with at a later date. The three pleaded guilty to reaping £590,000 from the trades involved in the case.

"This was a case of systematic abuse by an approved person of their privileged position in the market," Margaret Cole, FSA managing director of enforcement and financial crime, said in a statement. The "guilty pleas and sentencing of the Littlewoods and Sa'aid shows that we can, and will, uncover insider dealing, even across borders, and that the people who commit these market offenses will not go unpunished."

The longest sentence previously imposed for an individual convicted of insider dealing was 27 months, the FSA said.

The regulator started to investigate the trio in 2008, after a routine check of dealings in Highway Insurance PLC shares just before it received a takeover offer. Share purchases by Mr. Sa'aid in that deal and others were eventually linked to Ms. Littlewood and then to Mr. Littlewood.