Enron Fraud Trial Hears Lay Admit to Mistakes

Enron's founder, Kenneth Lay, yesterday ended six days of trial evidence claiming he had done all he could to avoid the company's collapse, an event he described as the "most painful thing" in his life.

In the last of a series of bruising exchanges the federal prosecutor, John Hueston, at the court in Houston, in the US, attacked Mr Lay's refusal during his evidence to accept the blame for what had happened to the company. "Sir, you have a long list of people to blame for Enron's collapse, and it gets longer and longer as you testify. And your list of people to blame and events to blame did not include yourself, did it, sir?" Mr Lay responded: "I did everything I could humanly do [at] this time. Did I make mistakes? I'm sure I did ... I had to make real-time decisions based on information I had at the time."

Questioned by the defence lawyer, George Mcall Secrest, Mr Lay, 64, denied keeping Enron's holding in Wessex Water at a fraudulently high value on the books. Enron believed the stake was worth keeping and would provide a return, he said.

Mr Lay and the former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling are accused of repeatedly lying to investors and employees about Enron's success when allegedly they knew that that record was based on accounting practices which inflated profits and hid bad news. Enron went bankrupt in December 2001.

Mr Skilling, 52, faces 28 counts of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Mr Lay faces six charges of fraud and conspiracy. They deny the charges and blame Enron's bankruptcy on bad publicity and market loss of confidence.