Impact of fraud can be same as serious assault, police told

POLICE and prosecutors have been told not to assume that the trauma experienced by some fraud victims cannot have the same impact as a serious physical assault.

Dame Vera Baird, the victims’ commissioner, said research published today showed more than 700,000 fraud victims suffered “severe harm” as a result of the crime but got “little or no care” to help them through the ordeal.

The study by her team of researchers found 22 per cent of the 3.2 million fraud victims each year experienced major financial loss, psychological damage, anxiety and loss of sleep.

Fraud now accounts for 36 per cent of all crime but despite its prevalence Dame Vera said: “When we think of the word ‘victim’, fraud is probably not one of the first crimes that springs to mind.

“That may be because we make assumptions about only the more affluent suffering fraud or perhaps we assume that because it isn’t a physical or sexual attack, this crime does not have the same traumatising impact that those offences do.

“Yet in high-harm fraud cases, victims frequently suffer deeply. Fraud can be an intimate and interpersonal crime, engendering long-lasting psychological consequences as well as financial loss.”

She warned that as a result of these perceptions many fraud victims were likely to “fall through the support net”.

“At the moment victims do not know who to turn to when seeking advice, support or even when they are looking for redress through the criminal justice system,” she said. “Most experience little to no victim care. This is extremely disappointing, especially given that long-lasting harm can frequently be suffered by victims.”

The research, based on 35,000 households’ experience of fraud in the Office for National Statistics’ British Crime Survey, graded nine groups on the impact the crime had on them, with the top three most vulnerable and hardest hit accounting for 700,000 – or 22 per cent – of all victims.

The top group, accounting for 190,000 victims or 6 per cent of the total, suffered the biggest losses with a quarter reporting being defrauded out of £2,500 or more. Largely white and aged on average 49, they were least likely to be reimbursed for the loss and rated the emotional impact as “severe”.