Confiscation proceedings are routinely brought following conviction, and although the intention was to strip criminals of their proceeds of crimes committed, they very often present another layer of punishment in addition to the sentence received following conviction for the predicate crime.
The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has been termed “Draconian” as a result of the sometimes unfair position assumed by the authorities attempting to recover assets from criminals. Assumptions of criminal lifestyle can often be hard to defend, unless they are thoroughly unpicked and replaced by reasoned argument. Common sense very often prevails, when a forensic accountant’s report is able to exclude errors such as double (or even triple) counting the same revenue and presents legitimate income clearly – often when business or personal records are sparse or even non-existent.
Mark Jenner & Co Limited specialises in preparing robust POCA reports that challenge the Crown’s Section 16 Statements of Information in a sensible way and ensure that any remaining benefit does no more than reflect actual criminal gains (if any) and that available assets are not inflated by the inclusion of spurious hidden assets.
Confiscations – the authorities are missing a trick and failing to maximize a self funding process or take advantage of a massive source of income … Read More
Providing expert accountancy reports in Proceeds of Crime confiscations has represented a substantial proportion of the crime and fraud focused work that I have been doing for quite some time now. When I started my specialist forensic accountancy business almost … Read more…
Confiscation proceedings follow a criminal conviction for a number of different crimes. Anybody making money from illegal activities is likely to commit a qualifying offence. Such offences are those where the benefit from the crimes trigger a £5,000 threshold or … Read more…
As I regularly see a dozen or more new confiscation proceedings every year as a forensic accountant appointed on behalf of the criminal defence team, I can’t fail but to notice the lack of consistency with the Crown’s approach in … Read more…
The judgements made by the House of Lords in 2008 in the three cases of R – v – May, R – v – Jennings and R – v – Green are considered to be landmarks for the process of … Read more…
These days confiscation cases seem to outnumber the predicate fraud cases that Mark Jenner & Co assists with. They are self funding for the authorities who will not be cutting back on this area – even if they are forced … Read more…
Confiscation Proceedings and POCA indictments within fraud cases impact a large proportion of the work carried out at Mark Jenner & Co. We see case after case involving anything from a few £1000 being stolen from the DWP to confiscations … Read more…
In the UK, the interpretation of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 when using asset confiscation as a weapon in the criminal regulators’ arsenal of sanctions will continue to develop and solidify over time. However, in recent years it seems … Read more…
