ONE of the former Tesco executives who denies misleading the market about the supermarket's profits had the discrepancy read out to him, a court heard.

Amit Soni, who joined the UK arm of Tesco as a senior accountant in June 2013, told Southwark Crown Court in London that on September 16, 2014, he had a meeting with John Scouler, 49, of St Albans, Hertfordshire and Chris Bush, 51, of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, who was present via telephone conference.

The two men and Carl Rogberg, 50, of Chiselhampton, Oxfordshire are charged with fraud by abuse of position and false accounting between February and September 2014, after it was found Tesco had inflated its profit by around £240m.

Mr Soni said that in the meeting Scouler presented a legacy document which detailed how the figure had come about.

Prosecutor Sasha Wass QC, asked Mr Soni how that document was presented.

He replied: "John Scouler presented the paper by reading out from the paper. It was very detailed, almost word by word."

He was then asked what Bush said after hearing the details in the paper.

Mr Soni said: "He said, to the effect, this legacy number will have to be discussed with Dave Lewis, the new chief executive of the company, and equally there is a responsibility, corporate responsibility is the word I remember, corporate responsibility for everybody to hit the budgets, or hit the numbers."

The trial continues.