By Maria Ward-Brennan
The head of the UK’s anti-fraud agency will set out his vision for a “bolder, pragmatic, more proactive” prosecutor this week in his first public speech since taking up the position late last year.
The director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Nick Ephgrave, is set to give his maiden speech tomorrow evening at an event hosted by defence and security think tank Royal United Services Institute.
According to a copy of the speech, shared with City A.M., he will say: “The SFO will be bolder, pragmatic, more proactive. This means not being afraid to close investigations which have limited chance of progressing to charge, so that resources can be moved to other cases.
“This means swifter action and more dawn raids – the SFO has already executed more since I arrived than in the preceding two years.”
Ephgrave, former assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, will also address the challenge of disclosure in complex fraud prosecutions, which can involve huge amounts of data.
“The largest case on our system has 48m documents, or 6.5 terabytes of data,” he will say.
Since taking over the role last September, the SFO has launched a number of new probes, including investigations into allegations of fraud at collapsed law firm Axiom Ince and British aircraft parts supplier AOG Technics.
He will say: “I am incredibly proud to have been chosen to lead the SFO at this moment and have been bowled over by the professionalism, dedication and enthusiasm I have found in the SFO team.”
