---

Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

As my hon. and learned Friend rightly said, calls for the special treatment of a small number of cases have been made for more than a decade. He referred to Maxwell, and I have with me a copy of the Financial Times from January 1996, which carries the headline, ““Maxwell brothers cleared of fraud””. I covered the trial at length when I was a member of the press, and that decision came as a surprise to a great many people. Many people in the fraud prosecution service think that it is high time that the Government addressed the problem, as they are now doing.