Investigate a £6m legal aid fraud? Sorry, police don’t have the staff
CROOKED lawyers swindled taxpayers out of £6 million in legal aid claims for made-up asylum seekers but two police forces said they were incapable of investigating the scam, a court has heard.
The boss of a London solicitors’ firm, her husband and their office manager submitted thousands of invoices for non-existent immigration cases during a six- year- long fraud then forged files to cover it up, it is claimed.
But when the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) uncovered the abuse of the system, City of London Police said they did not have the resources to look into it while Scotland Yard said they could not carry out the necessary computer analysis, top judges were told.
The extraordinary case emerged after The Mail on Sunday revealed how police chiefs admitted it was ‘not feasible’ for them to investigate every case of fraud, which accounts for half of all crimes in Britain.
This newspaper has also exposed how the national hotline Action Fraud has been accused of ignoring victims and losing cases, while the firm that ran its call centre went bust, with an overhaul well overdue.
As a result of police failing to investigate the alleged immigration firm case, the LAA entered into a most unusual deal with a local authority, which agreed to prosecute the law firm in return for a share of any ill-gotten gains. The High Court has now ruled that Thurrock Council was wrong to pursue the case for profit and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has agreed to put the trio on trial instead.
Lawyers for the council told judges that ‘any suggestion that the CPS would take on such a case at a time of austerity was “fanciful”’, and they began the prosecution last July.
But the Court of Appeal judges said the CPS had never been asked about ‘ instituting this very significant prosecution’, adding that ‘the prosecution proceedings were commenced unlawfully’ because the council had no power to bring them either under the Local Government Act or common law. Their ruling described attempts to involve police in the case as ‘half-hearted’, and agreed it would be ‘astonishing’ if the CPS had not agreed to prosecute the case.
The judges, led by the Lord Chief Justice, concluded: ‘Alleged abuse of the legal aid system is always serious; it assumes a particular importance in the field of immigration where there is a very significant drain on legal aid resources.
‘It is precisely the sort of prosecution that should be pursued by the national prosecuting authority.’
The Court of Appeal heard that the three defendants are now awaiting trial at Southwark Crown Court for conspiracy to defraud and perverting the course of justice, and deny the allegations against them.
Thurrock Council said: ‘The case has been cost-neutral to the local authority. The authority is currently considering the decision of the Court within the appeal timeframe. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.’
Scotland Yard declined to comment on the case.