Ex-Tesco boss Philip Clarke will not face charges over accounting scandal: lawyer

Former Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke will not face charges over the accounting scandal at the supermarket, his lawyer has said.

David Corker, partner at Corker Binning, said he had received a letter from the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) telling him Mr Clarke would not be prosecuted.

The letter said there was "insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction".

The SFO did not comment but said its probe into Tesco (Frankfurt: 852647 - news) was continuing.

Mr Clarke was ousted as Tesco boss in July 2014 after three years running Britain's biggest supermarket.

Former executives Christopher Bush, Carl Rogberg and John Scouler were charged by the SFO in September with fraud and false accounting.

Tesco disclosed in September 2014 that it had identified a £250m overstatement of first half profit, mainly due to the way it accounted for deals with commercial suppliers.

The scale of the overstatement was later raised to £263m.