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It's not evasion
because evasion is illegal and avoidance isn't. If you were correct then any decision in favour of HMRC potentially makes a criminal of the loser?
evasion v avoidance
On the scant facts noted the scheme appears wholly artificial with the operations having no commercial intent other than claiming tax relief. As such there are long standing legal principles under wwhich it could and should be attacked.
It is unlikley though to have been an attempt at tax evasion but is rather a failed avoidance scheme. Some you win some you lose, and that natually goes for both sides.
Burden of proof
I think that if the users of the scheme had a reasonable, legitimate and tenable expectation that the scheme worked, then it's avoidance not evasion under the law as it stands.
If you wanted to go even further and contend it was criminal fraud, then surely you'd have to meet a criminal standard of proof? You'd have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the users knew perfectly well that the scheme had no chance of succeeding once HMRC were apprised of the full facts. That sounds quite difficult.
I think the truth is that the users were persuaded by a clever salesman, supported by a compliant barrister, that the scheme was very likely to succeed. They accepted that in good faith, but of course it turned out to be wrong. So they gambled and lost, and most of us would say 'rightly so'.