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The Frauds Trials Committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Roskill, was established almost 20 years ago to deal with a number of perceived shortcomings in the investigation, prosecution and trial of serious and complex fraud. The social and economic world inhabited by the members of the committee and by those who gave evidence to it was radically different to the one we inhabit today. The financial services industry of the City of London was international without being global; its members and the professionals who assisted it were reasonably homogenous; and its regulation was on the basis of a gentlemen's club. Share ownership was confined to institutions, pension funds and the prosperous middle classes. Wider share ownership was only just being introduced as a political ideal. Cross-border crime was relatively rare and certainly did not extend to white-collar offences with any degree of frequency. Cooperation between different investigating bodies in the UK was inefficient, and the interchange of information or assistance between our law enforcement authorities and those of other countries was negligible and mutually unsatisfactory.
Fraud was investigated by fraud squads attached to each of the 43 police forces of England and Wales, with securities and investment fraud being largely the province of the joint City of London Fraud Squad and the Metropolitan Police Company Fraud Department.
Prosecutions for serious fraud were brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, by individual police authorities, or by the Department of Trade and Industry, and sometimes by Customs & Excise or the Inland Revenue. There was little or no coherence of prosecution policy. Probably the principal driver for the setting up of the Roskill Committee was the number of acquittals in high-profile fraud cases, particularly those which involved an understanding of the more arcane investment products available in the City of London. The committee was made up of judges, lawyers and police officers. As Professor Michael Levi has observed, they started their work on the basis of investigating the problems of juries responding to the complexities of fraud trials, but then broadened their focus almost to a 'cradle to grave' review of the criminal justice process. Their central...