The fraud force

The serious fraud office employs a total of 26 lawyers, each with a key contribution in bringing successful prosecutions.

Jeremy Fleming looks at a day in the life of three of them.

It has been a good year for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) - the best on record, in fact, since its creation in 1987: its annual report, released recently, showed that 11 out of the 12 cases it pursued to trial last year resulted in convictions.

This reflects well on the lawyers who work there, says Peter Kiernan, one of the SFO's assistant directors.

In an organisation which is effectively a prosecuting body, the most important roles are those of the lawyers who actually prosecute, he maintains.

Although many accountants - who work alongside police officers, solicitors and barristers at the SFO - might disagree, he points out that it is the lawyers whose decisions have an impact on every stage of SFO trials.

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A day in the working life of Peter Kiernan Morning: Arrives in office at 8.30 a.m.

and checks e-mails and work from the previous evening; at about 9.00 a.m.

discusses cases with senior colleagues.

Spends the rest of the morning dealing on a managerial basis with the division of cases: two mornings a week on case 'division', and three mornings in meetings discussing the progress of cases.

Lunch: At desk with newspapers; occasionally with colleagues.

No alcohol.Afternoons: Tends to work on administratiion: replying to correspondence, reviewing documentation, and more case meetings.

'I also set some time apart to be a "caring, sharing manager"; I wander into other departments of the office in order to establish exactly what is happening with other cases, so as not to be out of touch.'Of the eight assistant directors, six are lawyers, including the director Rosalind Wright, a barrister.

In total, the SFO employs 26 lawyers (out of 162 staff in total) made up equally of solicitors and barristers.

MrKiernan has just the type of zigzagged career path that one would expect to lead to the SFO: originally a police constable based in Medway, he qualified as a solicitor and and worked for Redfern & Stigent in the Medway Towns in Kent.

Three months later he transferred to work as a lawyer for the Inland Revenue, joining in December 1988.

At the Revenue he worked on tax fraud, especially relating to the construction industry: 'The construction industry is known as "the lump" in this business, on account of the amount of fraud and tax-evasion it gives rise to.' He moved to the SFO in 1990.

Fraud is a cyclical phenomenon, according to Mr Kiernan: 'When the going is good, and commerce is in a boom period, it is much easier for people to cover their tracks.

But in a recession, when people try to borrow money to hide their frauds, their schemes fall in on themselves and go into a downward spiral.'

Mr Kiernan says it is very difficult to stumble across frauds unless someone points them out.

'We rely a great deal on whistleblowers.

Apart from which, a major part of our job is spent identifying trends and bringing these to the public's attention.'

A good example was the Nigerian banking fraud, he explains, in which individuals were approached for the use of their bank accounts, on the promise that they would receive a massive cash benefit.

Once the details had been handed over, the bank accounts would of course be drained of their contents.

'This is the kind of case where it's easy to engage the interest of the media - it's like a fable about the power of greed, and almost comic; but it's much harder for us to get the media interested in, say, improved internal controls for banks.'Some have speculated that the SFO's success in the last year has been achieved at the price of avoiding larger cases.

Mr Kiernan says this perception is wrong: 'First, we are dealing with some huge cases at the moment, such as the Peter Young case (an alleged multi-million pound fraud involving a former Morgan Grenfell fund manager); secondly, it is right that huge cases should be scarce.'

What of the future of the SFO? Will the globalisation of fraud require a global anti-fraud organisation?

Mr Kiernan thinks the SFO looks set to continue in its role in the UK.

'The problem for international anti-fraud operations is one of resources,' he says.

'In America, the ratio of central FBI manpower resources to individual state resources is 1:1.

By contrast, in Europe, the ratio of EU central resources to individual member state resources is 1:1000.'

According to Mr Kiernan, this discrepancy means the EU is likely to continue in its present role as a facilitator, helping member states to exchange information, rather than acting as a functioning investigator.

'At least, that is unless it receives a massive resources increase,' he adds.

Emma Venton is a middle-ranking lawyer at the SFO.

She qualified with City giant Allen & Overy in 1993.

At the height of the recession she could not get a place in the firm's litigation department.

She heard through the grapevine - a friend working at the SFO - that someone there was looking for a temporary worker for a three-month contract, and she got the job.

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A day in the working life of Emma Venton Morning: Arrives in office between 8.30 and 9.15 a.m.

depending on meetings scheduled for morning.

Reviews outstanding correspondence, case correspondence.

Carries out case planning and reviews tasks and actions, liaising with staff responsible, attends meetings (including once-monthly case conferences; case action meetings; divisional and resource meetings, and general ad hoc meetings).Lunch: generally works through the lunch hour.Afternoon: Works on specific cases and reviews evidence, spends the latter end of the day reading legal updates.Generally leaves office 5.00 to 5.15 p.m.Spends an average of one day a week outside London working on cases, frequently involving an overnight stay.After working the contract, she took on two more three-month contracts.

By the end, she had followed the progress of three fraud trials in different parts of the country.

In 1995, Ms Venton became an assistant case controller, and now she is a full case controller.

She says, without wanting to put down her colleagues still working in private practice in the City, that 'the work is so different', and she much prefers the atmosphere at the SFO: 'In private practice you are competing for clients and for positions amongst each other.

Clearly there is also internal competition for jobs here; but the whole organisation is designed to support our investigations, which means it's a pretty friendly, happy place.'

However, the SFO is no less pressured a place to work: 'After all, here you have responsibility to the court, the public and to civil justice to get results.'Ms Venton says she is first and foremost a solicitor, rather than an SFO solicitor: 'We speak the same jargon and approach problems in the same way as other solicitors.

I suspect that, like other solicitors of my seniority in private practice, my role is as much project manager as lawyer.

Further down the pecking order is Satnam Tumani.

In 1995, a couple of years after finishing his legal practice course at Chester's College of Law, he was working as a paralegal through a London temping agency.

He was asked to work on a one-week project for the SFO, which he accepted.

The week was extended, and seven months later, still at the SFO, he was made a permanent member of staff.

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A day in the working life of Satnam Tumani Working hours: 9.30 am 'until not later than 8.30 p.m.

usually'.Day-to-day: No strict routine to the day; works on long-term cases.

Is allocated tasks at monthly meetings, which are then monitored at subsequent meetings.

Tasks: Drafting letters of request for information from foreign sources; securing/reviewing evidence and looking up papers relating to companies involved in cases; preparing documentation for the transfer of proceedings to the Crown Court from the magistrates courts; attending and carrying out interviews of witnesses under s.2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1987; sifting through masses of material - spending sometimes weeks in warehouses painstakingly reviewing discovery documentation.

In 1998 the SFO started a trainee solicitor programme, and Mr Tumani joined the first intake.

He explains: 'One of the problems from the SFO's point of view was that they couldn't offer a training course in-house that would satisfy the Law Society's requirements.'

This disadvantage meant that he had to do two six-month secondments: first at Allen & Overy, where he worked in the company department, then a civil litigation seat with the Treasury Solicitors.

The remaining training was with the SFO, mostly working as an investigating lawyer, but including three months spent in the policy division.In June Mr Tunami, along with Karl Banister, became the first trainees to qualify at the SFO.

He is now an investigating officer.

Mr Tunami says the teamwork is the most attractive feature of SFO work.

'Less with the accountants and the financial investigators, who have their own particular fields of expertise.

But if I'm involved in obtaining information, the police will always be able to show me different considerations that will shed light on the matter.'

Peter Kiernan reflects the view of all three when he says he has no regrets about working as a solicitor in the public sector, though he admits that if he was a private practice lawyer he would be 'delighted with the money'.

He says: 'If you want to be involved in important fraud work of the highest quality, you need to work for the government.'