Sydney, Thursday, April 14, 2005 Cuffed and criminal: Adler goes to jail   Adler ... non-parole period of two-and-a-half years. Photo: Nick Moir DISGRACED HIH director Rodney Adler has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for "an appalling lack of commercial morality". Adler, a one-time social A-lister and, like former business acquaintance James Packer, an old boy of Sydney's posh Cranbrook school, inherited his immigrant father's insurance business FAI but saw his world crumble during his time as a director of the collapsed insurance giant HIH. The extent of that disintegration became clear today when Adler was led to a prison van, minus his tie and shoelaces and with his jacket covering handcuffs. Adler had arrived looking his usual confident self, holding court at an impromptu media scrum which blocked traffic in Sydney's busy King Street and made him four minutes late for court -- he said he'd explained to his children that what was about to happen to him was the equivalent of being sent to his room. But within an hour, the trademark cockiness was gone. NSW Supreme Court Justice John Dunford ordered a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years. Adler, 45, is the first HIH director to be locked up over the $5.3 billion collapse of the insurer in 2001. Justice Dunford said Adler's offences displayed "an appalling lack of commercial morality". Adler displayed no emotion at the sentence and was led to the cells below the court. He will be eligible for release on October 13, 2007. The sentence was welcomed by Treasurer Peter Costello and the Labor Party. "Criminal conduct in the corporate sphere will be investigated, it will be prosecuted and the courts have shown that they are prepared to impose heavy jail terms," said Mr Costello. Labor corporate governance and responsibility spokesman Penny Wong said the four-and-a-half year sentence for Mr Adler, for four crimes of dishonesty committed in his time at the failed insurer, seemed appropriate. "Unfortunately no sentence will make up for the losses suffered by HIH shareholders and staff," she said. Adler has already been barred from being a director of any corporation for 20 years under a Supreme Court ruling in 2002. In February, Adler pleaded guilty to two counts of disseminating false information to the sharemarket over three large parcels of HIH shares he bought with HIH money. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to disclose adverse information about the financial state of one of his companies, Business Thinking Systems, which sought and received a $2 million loan from HIH in October 2000. Tomorrow, former HIH chief executive Ray Williams faces the NSW Supreme Court for sentence on three charges related to the failed insurer. Williams pleaded guilty last year to charges of being reckless and failing in his duties as an HIH director and making false statements. The three criminal charges carry a maximum sentence of 12 years. HIH became Australia's biggest ever corporate collapse when it failed in March 2001 with liabilities of $5.3 billion. One former executive of the company, Bill Howard, was handed a suspended three-year prison term in December 2003 on two counts of criminal misconduct. -- AAP.   Australian Rodney Adler faces jail for his billion dollar fraud; but gets very kind press notices indeed -- why?   Our dossier on Mr Irving's exclusion from Australia by Philip Ruddock, on the grounds of "character."   The Global Vendetta against David Irving Australia's twelve-year battle to keep David Irving from returning to speak to ordinary Australians | Ruddock's letter to David Irving (one of many) Fake New Zealand passports sequel Australia secretly expels Israeli diplomat -- neither country will say why

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