For the investors who were trapped in Neil Woodford’s defunct flagship fund — around 300,000 of them — the Financial Conduct Authority’s decision earlier this month to fine the former star manager and his investment firm almost £46m could not have come soon enough.

The UK regulator’s more than six-year long probe into the collapse of the Woodford Equity Income fund culminated on 5 August when it imposed a financial penalty of £5.9m on the 65-year-old. The FCA also banned Woodford from running retail investor money and prohibited him from holding senior manager roles in financial services.