Sunday 27 November 2016 5:02 pm

Wife of jailed Libor trader vows they will move on with their lives after his request for appeal is rejected

The wife of an ex-Barclays trader jailed for Libor-rigging offences has promised they will move forward with their lives after his request to appeal was turned down.

Alex Pabon, along with fellow former Barclays bankers Jay Merchant and Jonathan Mathew, was found guilty of conspiracy to defraud in July.

Morning Wire revealed in August the trio had applied to appeal their convictions. However, Bloomberg reported on Friday that those applications had been rejected.

In a statement issued over the weekend, Julie Pabon, Alex's wife, said she was "shocked and saddened" by the decision of the Court of Appeal not to grant the appeal but was also "somewhat relieved that our fight appears to be nearing the end".

"Even though it appears that we will not receive justice, I look forward to moving on with our lives at some point in the near future," she said.

Pabon recalled how she and her husband discovered he would be charged in the UK in a 5am phone call 10 days before their son's due date, and later learnt of her husband's verdict in a text message he sent reading "I'm sorry…. guilty…".

Alex Pabon, who was found guilty by a 10-2 majority, is currently serving a two year and nine month sentence. Meanwhile, Mathew and Merchant are serving sentences of four years and six and a half years respectively. Their former colleague Peter Johnson is also serving a four year sentence, having pleaded guilty before the start of the trial.

The only other person to be found guilty in the UK of Libor-rigging crimes is former UBS and Citigroup trader Tom Hayes, who was initially sentenced for 14 years but this was reduced to 11 by the Court of Appeal. His application to appeal to the Supreme Court was blocked earlier this year.

The Serious Fraud Office, which was the prosecutor for Pabon's case and whose investigation into Libor is still ongoing, declined to comment.