TWO directors of Bovingdon Market have been cleared of money laundering after a marathon three-year legal battle.

Sally Ann Ward, 45, of Woodland Road, Rickmansworth, and her brother Nicholas Giles Hobday, 49, of Blisworth, Northamptonshire, were convicted at St Albans Crown Court in July 2007 of two counts of money laundering – nearly two years after they were first arrested.

On Thursday, however, their convictions were ruled “unsafe” by Appeal Court judges and overturned.

The Crown had argued that the pair, directors of Wendy Fair Markets Ltd, had turned a blind eye to counterfeit goods being sold at the site.

Prosecutors said the company had benefitted from these sales because they rented pitches out to the traders responsible.

A number of these traders have since been prosecuted and sentenced.

Throughout their original trial, both Mrs Ward and Mr Hobday told jurors that they did not know, or suspect, that counterfeit goods were being sold.

They claimed if a trader was found to be selling counterfeits, he would be expelled from the market straight away and they had only a “limited ability” to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods.

Their lawyers successfully argued last week that the original trial judge had not properly instructed jurors on how to handle the evidence and how to relate it to the charges. The judges agreed.

Lord Justice Pill ruled that during the trial, which lasted five weeks, evidence was presented without sufficient structure and was likely to have “distracted” jurors.

Referring to the judge’s summing up of the case, he said: “There was a mass of evidence as to what had gone on in the market. There was a real danger that the defendants would have been convicted because of ineffective management.

“There was a real danger that it was their management style which was the subject of the case and not the specific offences with which they were being charged.

“The mass of evidence was summarised merely as a narrative, without a structure.

“Put in that way, it was likely to be a distraction to the jury to the specific task which they had to perform.”

Lord Justice Pill, sitting with Mr Justice Openshaw and Sir Christopher Holland, quashed all the convictions and refused a request from prosecution barristers for a retrial.

Mrs Ward, who was never sentenced, said: “Relief really doesn’t do justice to how we feel. We’ve spent nearly three years battling this and finally we’ve got a just result.”