It wasn't clear to me when I watched this whether or not Mr. Hobbs was eventually caught and arrested. All that we're told is that the investigators conclude that he acted alone and that the 100 million pounds were eventually transferred to Laura's account.
shareI think that Laura mentioned something about it near the end of the movie, pretty sure she said that he was never found i.e. he got away, probably fled the country or something.
shareIt would have been hard to prosecute him, anyway, since they wanted to keep the theft a secret. They would have probably leaned on him to get the money back, but prosecuting would have revealed everything and they didn't want that to happen.
shareHe did escape...who else would have planted all those yellow flowers in the cemetery where his wife was buried?
sharePlease clarify something for me. Did Finch figure out Hobbs was the culprit? I was under the impression that he didn't, and that only Laura knew. In that case, Hobbs simply dissapeared and no one chased him.
Edited to add: I just read the script... At the end Laura says that it was determined that Hobbs was responsible and acted alone. I think that here the script becomes a little weak.
1. While it's true that the company wants to keep the whole affair secret, Finch and his employers would still have an incentive to recover the 100 million.
2. The UK was fairly small back then, and it may not have been that hard to track Hobbs down, even if he changed his name.
3. OTOH, Hobbs had been planning his revenge for years, so probably he already had a new identity ready, property bought in another country, etc., etc.