In recent times the Serious Fraud Office has come under considerable scrutiny and criticism due to the collapse of several lengthy and hugely costly investigations, notably the 2023 collapse of the multiple million pound, 10 year investigation in to G4S tagging arm and the dropping of charges against three former directors at the company
The SFO though appear to be fighting back in its attempts to recover the confidence of the pubic. In a statement this week from Nick Ephgrave, the Director of the SFO, he announced what he referred to as a 5 year strategy to make the SFO more ‘proactive, strong, confident and dynamic organisation playing a greater role in the national effort to tackle fraud, ensuring that SFO cases progress at a faster rate, taking bold and pragmatic decisions on our casework and, finally, being seen as the partner of choice domestically and internationally.’ Interestingly, he went on to announce that the SFO intend to incorporate the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to seek to increase the speed in which the SFO brings prosecution. This is a very interesting announcement from the SFO as it infers they are looking to increase the number of prosecutions it brings. We watch this space with interest.
