THE
SPECTATOR
The Spectator, 56 Doughty Street, London WCIN 2LL Telephone: 071-405 1706; Telex 27124; Fax 071-242 0603
GETTING SERIOUS
The Walker trial was the result of three Years' intensive investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, lasted four and half months, cost more than £5 million, and achieved the conviction of Mr Wilfred Aquilina, Walk- er's former finance director. on a single
charge of false accounting. Walker's prose- cution joins the growing list of expensive
embarrassments for the SFO, headed by the Blue Arrow case, costing £40 million, in which all convictions were overturned on appeal; the second Guinness trial, part of ,i £20 million mini-series, in which the case was abandoned due to concern for the mental health of one defendant; and the three-year investigation into Mr Roger Levitt's multi-million pound collapse, a rel- ative bargain at only £1.4 million of costs, which resulted, through plea-bargaining, in the far-from-punitive sentencing of Mr Levitt to 180 days' community service. If the SFO inspired more confidence in its investigative skills. we might encourage it to investigate itself to see how it is possible to waste such enormous sums of public money and get away with it. A serious look at why our legal system is so ham-fisted in its handling of serious financial fraud would have two starting Points. First, whether the SFO has really proved itself incompetent, or whether it has been
misrepresented by the concentration
,01- media attention on a handful of particu- larly difficult, high-profile cases; and sec- °rid, whether the abstruse nature of the offences involved, and the complexity of evidence, makes fraud uniquely unsuitable,
n all the spectrum of criminal offences, for trial by jury.
The SFO's defence of its record rests on the fact that 75 per cent of the defendants it has brought to court this year have been found guilty. In a high percentage of cases with multiple defendants and charges, at least one conviction was secured, a result which, in the view of Mr George Staple, the SFO's director, may fulfil the objective of the investigation by 'going to the heart of the wrongdoing'. Thus the conviction of Mr Aquilina for false accounting establishes finally, for what it is worth, that there was truth in the suspicion of financial hanky- panky at Brent Walker, however obscure and even though Mr Walker himself was unaware of it at the time.
But the bulk of the cases which make up the SFO's statistics are those which do not capture public attention: cases in which the defendants do not have daughters who many cousins of the Queen, or give six-figure dona- tions to the Conservative Party. Malfeasance among the rich, powerful and newsworthy or the suspicion of it — damages public faith in the financial system and in the institutions of government, and it was to deal with inves- tigations at this prominent level that the SFO was set up. The SFO may have a respectable record in its more mundane case-work, but in its major showpiece trials (with the excep- tion of Barlow Cowes) it has repeatedly tripped itself up.
That is not to argue that the only satisfac- tory result of a criminal trial is the convic- tion of every defendant. It is at least as important to acquit the innocent, to remove the taint of suspicion from his reputation. But that result is, as it were, accidental. Suspects are brought to court after years of investigation because fraud officers actually believe they are guilty and wish to prove it. The SFO has armies of clever solicitors and accountants seconded to assist its detec- tives, and has exceptional powers — the so- called Section 2 order — to compel wit- nesses and defendants to answer questions. And yet so often it has been unable to unravel evidence and present it in clear enough terms to the jury, or has been out- flanked by legal niceties. In some cases the evidence may have been literally impene- trable, but if that is so, it is foolish to pur- sue a case to trial merely to satisfy media curiosity and political pressure for stable- cleaning to be seen to be done.
More importantly, it is extraordinary dangerous to argue that fraud trials would achieve more reliable verdicts if they were conducted without juries. Most judges may be cleverer than most jurors, but that argu- ment could be applied to any form of crimi- nal trial. The principle that prosecution evi- dence must be convincing enough to per- suade a panel of 12 ordinary men and women beyond reasonable doubt before a conviction is obtained, is the basis on which ordinary men and women have confidence in the judicial system and should not be interfered with. The SFO does a difficult job badly and deserves to be disbanded. But, as George Walker said as he emerged from the court, 'Thank God for the jury.'
Previous page
