Jérôme Kerviel was today jailed for three years and fined €4.9bn after being found guilty of unauthorised trades at his former employer Société Générale. The verdict brought to an end one of the most followed stories of the financial crisis, and one which delivered to Kerviel an unexpected celebrity status.

A French court this morning sentenced Kerviel to three years in jail plus two years suspended for his fraud. He was found guilty on all counts of forgery, breach of trust and unauthorised computer use. The criminal court in Paris also ordered him to pay the bank damages equal to the amount his trades cost the French bank in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reports.