Rigby's representative suggested a suspended sentence.But Judge Elwen said that, given the seriousness of the offence, "only custodial sentences can possibly follow". A confiscation hearing, to determine the pair's financial penalties, will be held on 11 November.After the hearing, Margaret Cole, the FSA's director of enforcement, said: "Directors can expect to be held personally responsible for the announcements they make to the market, as these convictions have shown."The sentences further demonstrate that the courts take a serious view of this type of behaviour. Bailey's lawyer suggested his client be given a community service order, and made an offer of contributing one-third of his monthly salary from his employment as means of compensation. The health of the financial services industry, which is a major contributor to the UK economy, will suffer."Lawyers for Rigby and Bailey had spoken of the defendants' strong character references, and the harsh reputational and financial damage they had already sustained.

Conduct such as this cannot be treated lightly by the courts, particularly in view of the message that needs to be sent out."The trial was the Financial Services Authority's first criminal prosecution for market abuse - a fact likely to have influenced the severity of the sentences.Commenting on the wider consequences of the AIT directors' actions, Judge Elwen said: "Every member of the public, having savings by direct investment on the stock market or by and through products themselves tied to stock markets, is injured if the integrity of the market is damaged by misleading information of this kind being announced to the market."If investors, large and small, come to the view that they cannot trust the information companies announce to the market, they will avoid the market when making investment decisions. But AIT had not sealed several contracts at the time of the announcement, which were key to the company making its targets. When the contracts fell through, the group was forced to issue two profits warnings in quick succession, decimating the company's share price and market value.Judge Elwen told them: "Neither of you cared whether [the information] was true or false and were heedless of the consequences in the madcap hope that all would be right on the night It wasn't. Rigby, the former chairman and chief executive of AIT, was sentenced to three and a half years at Brixton prison, and banned from taking on a role as company director for six years. Bailey, AIT's former finance director, was jailed for two years and banned from being a director for four years. The severity of the sentences shocked the defendants' friends and family, many of whom wept as Judge Christopher Elwen jailed the two men at Southwark Crown Court.In August, Rigby and Bailey were convicted of "recklessly" misleading the market through the release of an inaccurate stock exchange announcement three years ago, which said the company's profits were set to be in line with expectations. Carl Rigby and Gareth Bailey, former directors of the software company AIT, were jailed yesterday in a move intended to send a warning to the City over the potential consequences of breaching listing rules.

It has 8,000 staff and manufacturing facilities in North America and Europe, including the Grangemouth refinery in Scotland.Ineos has 7,500 staff and annual sales of about $8bn compared with the estimated $25bn of revenues which Innovene will achieve this year, making the purchase a transformational deal for Mr Ratcliffe.The deal is being financed by Ineos's three lead banks, Barclays Capital, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, which are underwriting a loan facility and arranging the issue of a high-yield bond.The two companies said they expected to get regulatory clearance from Europe and the US and complete the deal around the beginning of next year.. BP had planned to float Innovene by the end of this year but would not have sold its entire stake in the business.Ineos was formed in 1998 through the management buyout of another former BP business, Inspec, led by Jim Ratcliffe who owns a majority stake in the company. It has grown by buying legacy bulk chemicals businesses from other companies, such as ICI which sold Ineos its Runcorn chlorine plant.Innovene, which was set up as a separate business by BP in April this year in readiness for disposal, accounts for about 60 per cent of the oil major's petrochemicals division. Only Dow Chemicals, Dupont and BASF are bigger independent petrochemical companies.Lord Browne of Madingley, the chief executive of BP, said the sale to Ineos removed the uncertainty that would have surrounded an IPO. After buying Energis, it will still have up to £400m of net cash on its balance sheet. She said it was a "rather harsh view" to compare current management with its predecessors..