Tom Hayes stands within a whisker of rewriting his role in one of the biggest scandals to grip financial markets since the 2008 crash. If the convicted Libor rigger succeeds in proving his innocence, it could rewrite the UK’s approach to market manipulation cases, new and old.

To some, Hayes is the former UBS and Citigroup trader who inadvertently found himself caught up in a market-wide conspiracy to manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate, a benchmark that helps to determine interest rates on mortgages and sizeable corporate loans.