The Attorney General's Guidelines on Plea Bargaining in Serious Fraud: Obtaining Guilty Pleas Fairly?
| Author | Duncan Watson |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2010.74.1.617 |
| Published date | 01 February 2010 |
| Date | 01 February 2010 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Attorney General’s
Guidelines on Plea Bargaining
in Serious Fraud: Obtaining
Guilty Pleas Fairly?
Duncan Watson*
Abstract Fraud reform has recently culminated in the introduction of
guidelines on plea bargaining issued by the Attorney General. In addition,
it is likely that these guidelines will be complimented by new sentencing
provisions from the Sentencing Guidelines Council to give a formal plea-
bargaining model, which is hoped will increase conviction rates, process
cases more expeditiously and reduce public expenditure for fraud pro-
secution. In addition, these guidelines have been complemented by new
sentencing provisions from the Sentencing Guidelines Council to give a
formal plea-bargaining model. This article will examine whether the new
plea-bargaining model will deliver the transparent, efficient and effective
system desired, whilst ensuring that those defendants who enter into plea
bargains are free from improper pressure to plead guilty. Having been
studied as part of the fraud reform process, the US Federal plea-bargaining
model will be used as a barometer in this examination.
Keywords Plea bargaining; Fairness; Sentencing; Serious fraud; US
Federal plea-bargaining model
Fraud in England and Wales is one of the most dynamic areas of the
criminal law and has seen significant change in recent years, none more
conspicuous than the replacement of the eight heavily used deception
offences contained in the 1968 and 1978 Theft Acts with the general
fraud offence contained in the Fraud Act 2006. In addition to this, the
nature of fraud is ever-changing in accordance with contemporary
society and modern technologies. Investigations into such cases are
becoming more time consuming and therefore more expensive owing to
the increase year on year in the amount of business and financial
material that is being stored in electronic form. As a result, serious fraud
in England and Wales currently constitutes some of the longest, most
intricate and complex cases seen by the UK criminal justice system.
The wheels of fraud reform have not stopped at the introduction of
the Fraud Act 2006. During the same year the Attorney General com-
missioned the Fraud Review;1one of its key recommendations was that
plea bargaining be introduced as an alternative to full-scale criminal
trials.2The Review looked to the US in support of this recommendation,
* E-mail: duncan.i.watson@gmail.com.
1 Attorney General’s Office, ‘Fraud Review: Final Report’, available at http://www.
attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Fraud%20Review/Fraud%20Review%20Final%20Report%20July
%202006.pdf, accessed 1 December 2009.
2 Ibid. at 14.
77The Journal of Criminal Law (2010) 74 JCL 77–90
doi:10.1350/jcla.2010.74.1.617
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