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Fraud (Trials without a Jury) Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Delay in any criminal justice process is a bad thing, and I know—not so much from working on fraud cases, but from working on health and safety cases, including prosecuting them—that cases take far too long to get to court. One would like them to go faster. Delay is sometimes due to the investigation process. I do not think that it is usually due to the lawyers, but bringing everybody together in a court requires a bit of organisation, and it will still require organisation even when there is not a jury. There are always plenty of people to make up the jury panel—they can be found without great difficulty—and co-ordinating the diary availability of lawyers, defendants, witnesses and judges is by far the more complicated and time-consuming process in bringing a case to court. That is where the delays arise. The Home Office propaganda statement goes on to say:"““At present, in some of the most serious and complicated fraud cases, it is not possible for defendants to be tried on charges that adequately reflect the full scale of the accusations against them. This is because in cases that involve a multitude of different offences and defendants, it is necessary to limit the amount of evidence that is put before a jury.””" When I started prosecuting, I was taught by those who knew much more about the subject than I did to keep it simple. Every judge in front of whom I ever appeared insisted, when prosecutors said they wanted an 18-count indictment—for fraud or anything else—““No, cut it down. The criminality can be adequately shown by far fewer counts.”” In my experience, at the end of cases that resulted in a conviction, other matters could often be taken into consideration with the consent of the defendant. Under the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, where defendants do not agree to matters being taken into consideration, the judge may reach a decision on his own. I am at a loss, therefore, to understand how the Solicitor-General can argue that there is a problem of not showing full criminality, as we have all these important new provisions on the statute book—although I have a funny feeling that the relevant section of the 2004 Act has not yet been implemented, which is characteristic of this Government. We must also have a sense of perspective. I am sure that there are many people who have committed all sorts of crimes—not just fraud—for which they have never been convicted. I am not particularly concerned about that if they are serving a long period of imprisonment for the crimes for which they have been convicted, and neither I suspect are the public. The truth is that in many cases people are convicted of specimen counts, and it is perfectly adequate for the sentencing that follows to reflect the overall criminality. The Solicitor-General simply did not touch on that in his remarks, which puzzled me very much.