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During warm season of 2018, independent detective Simon Davison received a contact from a woman stating her ex- boyfriend had taken £10,000 from her. Carol, a traffic manager at a local council, represented an unusual client for Davison. As the head of investigative operations at an emergency advisory firm in London, Davison normally works for wary companies and wealthy individuals. Previously a police detective, Davison has retrieved stolen cryptocurrency, discovered secret properties held by bankrupt business people and located fraudsters operating from Cyprus.

Understanding Private Legal Actions

Davison's expertise lies in private prosecutions, a little-known area of law that allows victims to pay for their own legal recourse. These cases are heard in the identical courts operated by state legal authorities for England and Wales, and they can carry the equivalent prison sentences for suspects. "We essentially mirror the process between law enforcement and public prosecutors," Davison stated. The primary difference is that police officers are representatives of the state, whereas people approach Davison when state agencies cannot provide help.

An Example of Financial Fraud

Carol's ex-boyfriend, Jiro Wilson, had convinced her to lend him money to fund a company he was creating. In return, Wilson committed to giving her shares in his fledgling firm. "In retrospect, I could recognize how gullible I was to trust him," Carol later remembered in a legal testimony. "He would often describe me paranoid, and definitely made me feel this way when I suspected he was seeing other women."

One evening, while surreptitiously scrolling through Wilson's phone, she saved the numbers of other women in his address book, and began messaging them in secret. To Carol's shock, three women informed her that Wilson had also "taken" thousands of pounds from them. Carol created a WhatsApp group, and arranged to meet the women at one of their homes in Exeter. The four women found that each had been duped in the same manner. "He was a repellent narcissist," one of them commented. In total, Wilson had taken £46,000 from them, promising they would gain the rewards of putting money in his company. He used the money on companions, dining out and motorbikes.

When Law Enforcement Shows Minimal Interest

Carol notified Wilson's financial crime to the police, who directed her to the national fraud hotline, which provided her a case identifier and never contacted her again. The three other women also were unable to interest law enforcement in their case. More than recovering their money, the women desired justice. One approached a lawyer in Exeter called Jeremy Asher. "It was extremely clear that this was a substantial fraud perpetrated by a very devious, calculating individual," Asher remembered. "But the police showed no concern." Asher recommended the women to initiate a private prosecution. This approach would be costly – potentially tens of thousands of pounds – but their case was so strong that Asher said the court would probably repay their costs. So the women gathered the money, and on Asher's advice, Carol contacted Davison, the private investigator.

Building the Case

As he dug into the case, Davison discovered that Wilson also appeared to have manipulated his VAT returns. The judge who heard the private prosecution in December 2020 decided Wilson's offences were potentially so serious that state authorities should take over the case. State legal authorities passed the case to the police, who discovered that Wilson had submitted nearly £250,000 in false VAT returns, and had stolen a further £50,000 from a government loan scheme. On 13 June 2023, Wilson admitted guilt to seven counts of fraud at Exeter crown court. A judge gave him to six years in prison and characterized him as a "dishonest parasite."

The Growing Trend of Private Legal Actions

Had the police taken Carol and the other women's initial allegations more seriously, a private prosecution would never have been required. But their situation is not uncommon. The result is that over the past decade, a parallel criminal justice system has developed in England and Wales, operated by lawyers who specialise in privately prosecuting crimes, and former police officers who examine them. Government statistics on private prosecutions are scarce, but in 2024 they accounted for a quarter of all cases in magistrates courts in England and Wales. According to one law firm, between 2016 and 2021 the number of private prosecutions increased significantly. "Fifteen years ago, they were very rare," said a barrister who specialises in white-collar crime. Since then, "it's been like the stock market going up. It's just a sharp line."

Accessibility and Expense Concerns

Some regard these prosecutions as a answer to reducing state budgets, and a method to obtain justice when all other options have failed. But the risk is that well-resourced victims can afford something denied to others. A defence barrister noted that, in his experience, private prosecutions were typically brought by "people who can afford to spend a million, or a couple of million, if it comes to it." The cost of examining complex cases puts such prosecutions beyond the reach of most average people. "As it stands, they fill a gap in name only," said a solicitor at a City law firm. "If you really wanted to fill that gap, the best way to do it would be by adequately funding the criminal justice system."

Financial Crime Cases and Law Enforcement Approach

In recent years, fraud has only grown. In England and Wales, it increased by 31% in 2024 alone. Yet the police have, as a rule, shown little interest in addressing it. Several former police officers noted that it was regarded as uninteresting. "There's a real focus towards action. Catching a burglar and chasing them down the street," said a former detective chief inspector. Whereas with fraud cases, "you need someone who is willing to go through a thousand pages of a spreadsheet." Few people join the police to pore over Microsoft Excel documents. As one officer put it in a 2019 report, "Fraud doesn't bang, bleed or shout."

Current Systems and Their Shortcomings

The main port of call for victims is the national hotline, Action Fraud, which was founded in 2009. When a retired sergeant used to work at a control room logging emergency calls, he would often direct callers to Action Fraud. "We thought, these specialists are excellent. They've got adequate resources, they're informed," he remembered. "You're not talking about some local officer who has no idea."

In reality, Action Fraud is a call centre whose day-to-day running was, until 2019, outsourced to a private US company that employed call handlers who received just two weeks of training and were paid close to the minimum wage. When an undercover reporter worked at Action Fraud in 2019, they found staff taking calls from victims while scrolling through their phones and engaging in distracting activities. Some of their managers mocked fraud victims as "naive individuals."

Financial Considerations of Private Legal Actions

While victims cover the initial costs of private prosecutions, many of their expenses are ultimately funded by taxpayers, whether or not their case is successful. Every time a firm wraps up a private prosecution, they ask the judge to reimburse them from central funds, a pot of government money that covers the costs incurred in criminal prosecutions. The appropriate government unit then reviews the firm's application and decides how much money they get back. "It's not a blank cheque," said one legal expert. "But in my experience, you typically get 80% or 90% of your costs reimbursed." Firms specializing in private prosecutions charge a higher hourly rate than public prosecutors, so private prosecutions "almost inevitably cost the state much more," one judge noted in a 2014 ruling. According to available data, the government has paid out significant sums to cover private prosecution fees in recent years.

Potential Misuse and Abuse

Private prosecutions can also be effective weapons: some legal experts mentioned having seen cases where wealthy people "try to use private prosecutions just as a way of pressuring someone, basically." Rail companies have been particularly adept at criminalising people for minor rule-breaking in recent years, fast-tracking draconian prosecutions through simplified procedures. Defendants receive a letter detailing a charge, to which they must respond within 21 days. If they don't respond (because the letter gets lost in the post, for example), they can be tried and sentenced by a single magistrate, who can criminally convict them without a court hearing, using only minimal evidence.

Future Changes and Considerations

Despite the growing demand for this alternative justice system, some people in the industry worry about its long-term viability. Government suggestions currently making their way through parliament contain details that could significantly affect the entire business model. It proposes that lawyers should only be awarded "adequate" costs from central funds. The proposal doesn't state how much would count as "adequate," but in theory it could mean that highly paid lawyers would suddenly find themselves earning lower rates.

Earlier this year, government authorities took a critical view of private prosecutors in a consultation paper, alleging that some of them had "acted unlawfully, improperly and well below the standards the public expects." Its main target was an organization that brought numerous successful private prosecutions against its operators between 1991 and 2015, sending innocent employees to prison for theft and fraud. In theory, it should be possible to distinguish between such scandals and justified cases, since public prosecutors can put a stop to any private prosecution. In practice, they are too overstretched to monitor every case.

Ethical Questions and Public Concern

If such prosecutions provoke a fundamental unease, it can be because they assume a power that many people think should belong to the state. "How do we feel about the state effectively lending the keys to its tanks to a private individual, and saying, you can have fun with these for a little while?" said a defence barrister. Private prosecutors emphasize that they apply the same public interest test as the state does when deciding whether to prosecute. But unlike public prosecutors, who receive a salary regardless of whether they prosecute a case, private firms get paid to bring cases, not turn them down.

"The old thing that used to be said about public prosecutors was that they enjoy no victories and suffer no defeats," noted a former director of public prosecutions. "If you're a private law firm and your whole business model depends on bringing private prosecutions, you want to win. Your business model is: we will get you a conviction."

Summary

If the government reduces the fees that private prosecutors can claim back from the state, the industry that has thrived in the wake of austerity will certainly diminish. So long as the government continues to deprive the criminal justice system of adequate funding, however, the demand for such alternatives will persist. During research, multiple legal experts mentioned the health service. They drew a parallel between private prosecutions and the clinics and surgeries that improvise expensive solutions to the problem of a failing public institution. In both instances, the solution only compounds the problem: when some people can buy their own criminal cases or medical treatments, they have fewer reasons to invest in the idea of improving these things for everyone else.