I'm not, in any way, defending Garner as I think he deserves the full force of the law for any and all things he has done illegally but I genuinely don't think he went into this with the intention of it ending up where it currently is. Was he naively optimistic? Without a doubt. Did his dreams exceed his ability to deliver? Absolutely! But that was obvious from day one. Part of the fault lies with a system that allows naively optimistic ego maniacs to get away with blowing pension funds and tax payers money on pipe dreams and vapour-ware.
Those who handed over their own money without doing any due diligence really only have themselves to blame. Those who feel they've been illegally fleeced in the past and have done nothing about it have little to complain of. The law is there for a reason - they should have used it. The ones I feel sorry for are those who put money into a pension scheme in good faith, believing that "the system" protected them, only to find that an unscrupulous bastard and run off with all their money.
Like most, my big concern is that Garner ends up with little in the way of legal "just deserts" because the system is set up incorrectly. If that happens then the lynching party should not just be for Garner, but for your local MP who, despite previous pension fund scandals, has been deficient in their duty of learning the lessons and implementing legal securities that ensure that the Norton pension rip-off could not have happened.
