THE SERIOUS Fraud Office has reiterated calls for juries to be scrapped in lengthy fraud trials, as figures released today point to a sharp drop in fraud convictions.

The just-published SFO report for the year to April 4, 2005, shows that the organisation’s conviction rate fell during the year to 64 per cent, compared with an average of 70 per cent over the previous five years. Of 58 people tried last year, 37 were convicted and 21 acquitted.

Notable scalps included the Versailles duo Carl Cushnie and Fred Clough, who were each jailed for six years for defrauding investors and ordered to pay more than £24 million between them in compensation.

Current thinking is that jury trials in fraud cases should last no longer than three months, or up to six months in exceptional circumstances.

Robert Wardle, the SFO director, believes that a judge sitting alone, or with assessors, would be best placed to preside over long and complex fraud trials, which otherwise have to be scaled back to ensure they are accessible to jurors.

He says: “There are some cases that are really not amenable to jury trials. It’s a question not of whether juries can understand them; we simply don’t know that. We’re not allowed to ask them, unlike in the United States. It’s a question of whether you can make these cases manageable to put before a jury in a reasonable timescale.”

Given the complexity of some alleged frauds, some cases would never make it to trial.

“There are some cases which, because of their size and complexity, cannot be properly tried in that timescale,” he says. “It’s either going to make life overly burdensome for the average juror or, in order to make it manageable, you either cut out defendants or cut down on the evidence, and so you don’t get a fair result.”

Prosecutions arising from the collapse of Robert Maxwell’s empire were split over two trials in the interests of manageability. The second trial never happened. “It’s that sort of case that we’re concerned about. The system effectively couldn’t cope with it.

“The advantage of a judge sitting alone — or sitting with assessors — is that you will at least get a reasoned decision. The reasons for either acquitting or convicting will be available to the public. At the moment, all you get is the decision by the jury. I hope that that would give great public confidence in the process.”

Wardle is an enthusiastic supporter of calls for a single offence of fraud. The Fraud Bill, now before Parliament, simplifies the law by providing for an offence of fraud that can be committed by a person making a false representation, failing to disclose information or abusing a position if acting dishonestly.

He says: “That will help to concentrate the decision that courts have to make, juries or judge, and concentrates on what the issue is — which is almost always dishonesty.”

He contends that the dip in SFO convictions last year should be seen in perspective. “People say, ‘If you’ve lost a case, it must be a disaster’. It isn’t. When you bring a case before the courts, sometimes it goes well, sometimes it goes badly.”

Wardle was case controller for the notoriously complex Guinness fraud investigation. He spent ten years as a prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service before joining the SFO at its inception in 1988.

He is eager to increase the speed with which cases are brought to trial. All new SFO cases make use of a system called Docman, developed at a cost of at least £15 million, which allows documents to be scanned electronically.

Investigators can get access to documents up to 18 weeks faster than under the old, paper-based, system. It also enables the SFO to serve a case on the defence in electronic form.

This has transformed case management. “If you go down to the exhibits room, the stuff is barcoded, shrinkwrapped and sent off site,” Wardle says. “You make it available to investigators on their screens so much more quickly, never mind the advantages of being able to scan it.

“We are increasingly getting judges who want this sort of thing electronically. More of them are alive to the advantages of using this sort of thing.”

The SFO receives about

50 requests a year to provide mutual legal assistance to foreign authorities.

Wardle had hoped to vacate the SFO’s Elm House headquarters in Central London in favour of shared premises with the City of London Police economic crime department. Instead, the SFO is taking additional office space nearby.

“It would be nice to have a one-site, but at the moment we can’t achieve that,” he says. “It would be much easier to lay on joint training, and people get to know each other better.”

He insists that the SFO receives a far fairer hearing than it did ten years ago, when its image, post-Maxwell, was considered fatally tarnished.

“People are much more knowledgeable about us,” he adds. “We’re certainly not under the siege we were in the past.”

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