Missing tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in US trial dies in UK road accident, lawyer says

Stephen Chamberlain, once Mike Lynch’s co-defendant in the US fraud trial over the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard, has died after a road accident left him critically injured, days before Lynch went missing off the coast of Sicily, his lawyer said on Monday.

Chamberlain – Autonomy’s former vice-president of finance alongside chief executive Lynch – was hit by a car in Cambridgeshire on Saturday morning and had been placed on life support, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier on Monday.

In a statement, Chamberlain’s lawyer, Gary Lincenberg, who described him as a “dear client and friend”, said he had died after being “fatally struck” by a car while out running.

Stephen Chamberlain was cleared of all fraud and conspiracy charges along with Mike Lynch in June.

“He was a courageous man with unparalleled integrity. We deeply miss him. Steve fought successfully to clear his good name at trial earlier this year, and his good name now lives on through his wonderful family,” Lincenberg said.

Lynch was one of six people reported missing after a luxury yacht was struck by an unexpectedly violent storm and sank off Sicily early on Monday.

Chamberlain faced the same charges of fraud and conspiracy as his former boss for allegedly scheming to inflate the value of Autonomy, then Britain’s largest software firm, before it was sold.

Both the men were acquitted of all 15 charges by a jury in San Francisco in June.

After leaving Autonomy in 2012, Chamberlain worked as chief operating officer for cybersecurity firm Darktrace and volunteered as a finance director for Cambridge United Football Club, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Cambridgeshire Police appealed for witnesses after a collision between a pedestrian and a car in Newmarket Rd in Stretham, Cambridgeshire, saying a man in his 50s had been taken to hospital with serious injuries.

The driver of the car, a 49-year-old woman from Haddenham, was assisting officers with their inquiries.