David Jones, the former finance director of Northern Rock, has been banned from working for a regulated company and fined £320,000 by the Financial Services Authority for misreporting mortgage arrears at the bank. He is the third ex-Northern Rocker to be landed with such penalties. David Baker, the former deputy chief executive, and Richard Barclay, who used to be the bank’s credit director, were also recently banned and fined a total of £650,000 by the FSA.

The FSA said that his misconduct began in mid January 2007 when he agreed “to allow false mortgage arrears figures to appear in explanatory text published with the 2006 annual accounts”.

In a statement, Mr Jones said:

“I accept that I did not ensure that information on residential arrears prepared and presented by others was corrected to include certain accounts known as ‘pending possession’ cases. However, I consider that the FSA’s conclusions and imposed penalty are both unfair and disproportionate.”

Not sure his ‘unfair’ pleas will garner much sympathy.