Ex-Southern Water boss charged with conspiracy to defraud over water tests
Charges stem from alleged manipulation of compliance tests
The former chief executive of Southern Water has been charged with conspiracy to defraud authorities over allegations he was involved in a plan to manipulate water quality tests to avoid millions of pounds in penalties, it can now be reported.
Matthew Wright has been accused alongside three others of conspiring to defraud the Environment Agency (EA) and water regulator Ofwat.
The EA previously asked a judge to issue a summons against Wright, as well as Philip Barker, Clive Massey and Mark Gregory, who also worked at the company, charging them with the offence.
The summons was issued last year but Wright then launched a legal challenge over the move, with his lawyers telling the High Court in June that the EA did not have the power to issue it and that it should be thrown out as a “nullity”.
On Wednesday, two senior judges dismissed Wright’s claim, and ruled that restrictions previously preventing reporting of the legal challenge should be lifted.
Separate court listings show that the case against 60-year-old Wright, of Haslemere, Surrey, Barker, 57, of Chiltington, West Sussex, 64-year-old Massey, of Brandhill, Shropshire, and 63-year-old Gregory, of Southampton, were scheduled to be heard at Medway Magistrates’ Court on July 14.
The four are accused of conspiring between 2012 and 2017 to “defraud persons performing public duties in respect of environmental and financial regulation” of Southern Water, including the EA and Ofwat, by “the implementation of artificial no-flow events at waste water treatment works”.
The court listings also show that Southern Water has separately been charged with dozens of offences of failing to comply with or contravening an environmental permit condition between 2013 and 2017 at multiple wastewater treatment works.