A Penzance businessman on trial for fraud totalling almost £20 million killed himself days before the rest of his family was sentenced.

Peter Benstead, 72, was on trial with his wife, son, and son in law, in relation to offences of fraudulent trading, false accounting, money laundering and theft, centred around the failure of Hayle based companies Crown Currency Exchange, Crown Holdings and Mayfair and Grant.

Benstead, was found dead in a car at Chiverton Cross last Monday, but jurors at Southwark Crown Court were only told of his death as they returned their verdicts on Thursday, May 7, and the media were banned from reporting the apparent suicide until after the verdicts were returned.

Judge Michael Gledhill QC asked jurors not to return verdicts on the 10 counts on which Benstead was accused, but his widow Susan, 70, was found guilty of one count of money laundering - a joint charge with her late husband on which she could only be convicted if he was.

The couple's son Julian, 46, of Penzance, who ran Crown's sister company which specialised in trading cash for gold, was convicted of one count of fraudulent trading, but cleared of the theft of 11.3kg of gold which went missing in the days leading up to Crown's collapse - a count on which his father was also charged.

Son in law Roderick Schmidt, 46, of Penzance, Crown's manager, was convicted of two counts of fraudulent trading, and cleared of two counts of false accounting.

Stephen Matthews, 52, Crown's former accountant, of St Newlyn, was found guilty of two counts of false accounting but not guilty of two counts of fraudulent trading.

Also convicted was ex-mayor of Glastonbury and former Crown director Edward James, was convicted of two counts of fraudulent trading relating to the days leading up to the collapse, but cleared of two counts of false accounting.

The court heard 12,500 customers were lost £19.5 million when the firm went under in October 2010, having run into serious financial problems following bad market speculation, using new clients' investments to settle existing debts and accepting payment from customers, even when some staff knew the firm was insolvent.

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Bean of Devon and Cornwall Police said: "While I welcome the verdicts of the court today I have to recognise it's a tragedy when anyone loses their life.

"But the verdicts of the court today have gone some way to giving the victims a certain amount of closure in relation to this five-year investigation."

Sentencing was adjourned until June 12.