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Abstract

Fraud is the most common crime in the UK. Tackling fraud requires, inter alia, the investigation and prosecution of offenders. The disclosure process in fraud investigations must be conducted diligently in order to ensure fair trials and secure convictions, and maintain public trust in the criminal justice system. The disclosure process, with its statutory foundation in the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996, is inalienable from the concept of a fair trial. Disclosure mandates the provision of material to a defendant, where such material could reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution or of assisting the case for the accused. This is a critical counterpoise in an adversarial criminal justice system that places the might of the state against the resources of the individual. The same disclosure issues that afflict all prosecutions are exacerbated by the vast size and complexity of fraud investigations. In the main, it is fraud investigators who contend with the unenviable task of operating the disclosure process in these leviathan prosecutions. Measures which reasonably limit the scope of disclosure in fraud prosecutions are to be welcomed if they are perceived to be effective – that is, to ensure fair trials, secure convictions, and efficient use of criminal justice resources. This study considered, seriatim, fraud investigators’ experiences of the defence case statement and the rebuttable presumption – the oldest and newest measures in the statutory disclosure framework which may limit the scope of the disclosure process. Through the distribution of a survey seeking fraud investigators’ experiences of the defence case statement and the rebuttable presumption, the study found no great enthusiasm for the operation of these measures in practice. The study concluded that measures designed to limit the scope of the disclosure process must be adhered to and, where necessary, enforced, if the burden of disclosure in fraud prosecutions is not to become too weighty for the criminal justice system to bear.

Course: Counter Fraud and Criminal Justice Studies - BSc (Hons) - C1592

Date Deposited: 2022-09-21

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14029.html