The remorse expressed yesterday by Gary Mulgrew, David Bermingham and Giles Darby is undoubtedly rooted in genuine emotion.

The prospect of a 37-month spell in a United States jail has more than likely brought home to them the enormity of their offence.

But these public utterances of regret are also extremely well timed, helping the powers that be to realise that they have changed as they determine which American prison to send them to.

This will be key to how comfortable their stay in the US will be and could be a significant determinant in how much of their sentences are spent back in their UK homeland.

Dan Cogdell, Mr Bermingham’s lawyer, has said that a key plank of the plea agreement was the commitment of the prosecutor, the US Government, to back the NatWest Three’s request to serve the majority of their time in Britain.

However, after 20 months in the US awaiting yesterday’s decision, the bankers are keen to return home as soon as possible and their lawyers are leaving very little to chance.

Yesterday they asked that the bankers be sent to a prison in Pennsylvania where they plan to apply for a programme that allows sentences to be served out overseas. Staff at the facility in question have a wealth of experience in this programme and so a spell there could aid their return to the UK.

They have also arranged to pay back the bulk of the $7.3 million (£3.7 million) restitution to the Royal Bank of Scotland through a civil judgment entered in the UK. By paying back the money through a British entity, the three bankers are able to sidestep the US requirement that full restitution be made before they can transfer to a facility outside the US.

Mr Cogdell is hopeful that, after between six and nine months in America, the bankers will be permitted to serve the remainder of their time in the UK.

Of one thing we can be sure – they will continue to eat humble pie until they are safely back on British soil. But perhaps of infinitely more interest will be what they might say afterwards.

That, in turn, will spur another debate on the extradition treaty, not to mention the American judicial system and whether plea-bargaining is good or bad justice.

Five-and-a-half years into these kind of debates, they appear to have a considerable amount of life in them yet.

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