The rock star Robert Palmer was among the clients who were reported to have lost money.Six months earlier, an investigation - still ongoing - was launched into the showbusiness accountants Stainton Shafto, reportedly involving pounds 6m belonging to Rick Wright of Pink Floyd.But often clients and accountancy companies are both keen to hush things up, particularly if the money is fully recovered and criminality looks hard to prove - and it often is. What does surprise me is that it doesn't happen more often."Just how often it does happen is difficult to gauge Scandals do occasionally blow up. While one leading music industry accountant said he was "quite frankly flabbergasted" that Sting and his other close advisers - his manager, Miles Copeland, and lawyer, Christopher Burley - failed to spot the huge fraud, others in the industry barely raised an eyebrow."This could happen remarkably easily," said Ed Bicknell, manager of the similarly rich and successful rock group Dire Straits "It doesn't surprise me at all. But not all those involved in the business side of rock and roll are as shocked by the story.

Mary Braid reports Robert Palmer: Another star said to have lost cash Following the trial of his accountant, Keith Moore, Sting will probably be forever known as the superstar who was fleeced of pounds 6m and was too rich to notice. Such an oversight - even over a period of four years - astounds the man in the street. LEGAL NOTE: Legal Message: Complaint by Mr Christopher Burley, Solicitor See letter published in Independent 20th October 1995. At Sting's 40th birthday party he presented his client with a small token of his appreciation - a Jaguar XJS.There were a couple of wonderful cameo roles. Trudie Styler, Sting's wife, pregnant with their fourth child, explained why she never as much as peeked at her husband's numerous bank statements.When Sting had left his first wife, Ms Styler, a producer and documentary maker, said she was wounded by suggestions that she married him for his money.. Reputedly earning pounds 800,000 a year, he was given to his own lavish gestures.

He added that had Moore told him he needed the money to pay his own tax alarm bells would have rung. "If he couldn't do his own, how could he do mine," he said.In court there was some evidence that Moore, middle-aged and straight, had seen his position as a guarantee of a slice of the rock'n'roll action. There was laughter in court when Sting replied that might have had some bearing on his short career as a taxman.Later he denied he had given Moore the pounds 690,000 cheque to pay off the accountant's tax bill "I'm a generous man," he said. "But not that generous."Sting insisted that Moore had told him the cheque was for the star's own tax - since he had paid more than pounds 20m to the taxman he did not query the sum. "You can't have somebody at the Inland Revenue who is horrified by financial documents," said Nicholas Purnell QC, the defence counsel.