It is now up to Lord Black to prove his innocence to the rest of the world

The excesses of Lord Black, former proprietor of the Telegraph Group, which owns this magazine, are mind-boggling. Of course they have not yet been proven in a court of law, and Lord Black continues to deny the allegations in his characteristically orotund language. But the author of the 500-page report condemning Lord Black is Richard Breeden, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in America, and his colleagues are equally well respected and disinterested people. Moreover, they have certainly provided chapter and verse to a level of detail that must — or should — be mortifying to Lord Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel. Lord Black may continue to protest his innocence, but until he is able to prove otherwise the rest of the world will assume that a truly stupendous heist has been committed, one that bears comparison with the activities of the late Robert Maxwell.

The report alleges that ‘the aggregate cash taken by Hollinger’s former chief executive officer, Conrad M. Black, and its former chief operating officer, F. David Radler, and their associates, represented 95.2 per cent of Hollinger’s entire adjusted net income during 1997–2003’. Wow! (Hollinger International directly controlled the Telegraph Group until it recently sold it to the Barclay brothers.) To trouser 95 per cent of a company’s profits is not just an example of monumental greed but also an act of madness. For how could they think that they would continue to get away with it? This is what strikes me most about this report, if it is true: the utter insanity of Lord and Lady Black. They resemble a couple of cat burglars who recklessly leave a trail of clues wherever their escapades take them, partly because they hold the forces of law and order in such low esteem, and also because they truly believe themselves to be superior people occupying a different moral realm to the rest of us.