Delays to fraud cases in England and Wales have doubled in eight years, prompting fresh criticism that not enough is being done to deliver justice.
The rise in delays came despite the number of fraud cases coming through the courts dropping to barely a third of 2014 levels, according to the analysis by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA).
In the final quarter of 2022, there were 447 fraud cases, which took on average a record 497 days to complete from charge. By comparison, it took 242 days on average for the 1,294 fraud cases that were completed between October and December 2014.
In 2022, one in 15 adults were victims of fraud. There were 3.7m fraud offences in the year to September 2022, according to the England and Wales crime survey, accounting for about 40% of all crimes. In the year ending March 2021, Action Fraud received victim reports totalling a loss of £2.35bn while the cost to society of fraud against individuals is believed to be approximately £7bn a year.
However, the number of fraud prosecutors dropped from 221 in 2015 to 167 in 2021. Last year, the then business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, was accused of being disrespectful to victims of scammers after he defended Boris Johnson’s claim that crime was falling by 14% – which was only true if fraud was excluded (otherwise crime was rising).
Kirsty Brimelow KC, the CBA chair, said: “The whole criminal justice system is in crisis. There are too many cases and not enough barristers and not enough court staff to manage the listing of cases. Defendants often are on bail in fraud cases and so their cases will wait for the completion of those cases where defendants are remanded in custody.
“With a backlog of over 60,000 cases [for all crimes in crown courts], the delays are getting longer. There also is a lack of judges who try fraud cases. Slashing of money into the criminal justice system has created a perfect storm. It is victims of crime and, in fraud, the economy that suffers,” Brimelow said.
The CBA found delays were even worse for fraud cases where the defendant was on bail. In the last quarter of 2022, 268 cases of bailed defendants on trial for fraud offences concluded, taking a record 632 days on average. Only rape trials involving bailed defendants took as long to complete in the crown courts. In 2014, the 833 fraud trials that completed between October and December took 291 days on average.
The shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, said: “According to the government’s own fraud strategy, published last month, there is only one prosecution for every thousand fraud offences committed in England and Wales, and what this latest analysis reveals is that even those fraud cases that do result in charges are taking years to complete.
“We desperately require root and branch reform of our country’s entire approach to tackling the fraud crisis, including making it easier and quicker to prosecute the criminals responsible.”
A government spokesperson said: “These figures demonstrate the impact of the pandemic and last year’s industrial action on the wider outstanding court caseload – given completion times for fraud cases were broadly stable up to the end of 2019.
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“We’ve since taken decisive action to speed up cases going through the system, including lifting the number of days courts can sit and recruiting more judges, so victims can get the swift access to justice they deserve.”
The CBA said delays had continued to rise post-pandemic despite fewer cases and its industrial action “merely highlighted pre-existing delays in a chronically underfunded criminal justice system”.