The SFO said four former Wickes directors - Trefor Llewellyn, Geoffrey Battersby, Terrence Carson and Leslie Rosenthal - were charged with "fraudulent trading and making false statements".

A fifth individual, former chairman and chief executive Henry Sweetbaum, will be charged when he returns to the UK from abroad.

The scandal came to light in 1996 after Wickes was found to have significantly overstated its profits.

The SFO charged that in the period January 1994 to June 1996, Wickes through the "inappropriate recognition of supplier rebate and contribution income" overstated its consolidated operating results.

In June 1996 Wickes admitted that its profits had been overstated by some £53m over the previous four years, and its shares were suspended.

The company later revised downwards its profits, from £36m to £18m in 1994 and from a profit of £17m to a loss of £9.9m in l995.

Full cooperation

In a brief statement, Wickes said it had no further comment to make on the proceedings other than to say that the individuals in question left Wickes in 1996 and early 1997.

A spokesman stressed the current case does not involve the company or its current management "in any way".

At the time of the alleged offences, Mr Llewellyn was the group finance director, Mr Battersby was the group financial controller, Mr Carson was the finance director of Wickes' main retailing operating subsidiary and Mr Rosenthal was the group trading director responsible for buying.

An SFO spokesman said individuals convicted in the past of fraudulent trading and making false statements have received custodial sentences ranging from one to seven years and in extreme cases up to 14 years.

The Serious Fraud Office has a success rate of 67% in securing convictions, but it has lost a number of high profile cases. Its role is to prosecute the more complex cases of financial fraud.