The policing, investigation and governance of ‘Rogue Trader’ fraud: Whose responsibility?
| Author | Rachael Aplin |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X211020038 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
The policing, investigation
and governance of ‘Rogue
Trader’ fraud: Whose
responsibility?
Rachael Aplin
School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield,
Huddersfield, West Yorks, UK
Abstract
This Rogue Trader fraud study examines questionnaire data from 26 England and Wales
police force intelligence branches (FIB) and trading standards focus group data. Findings
highlight police disinclination to investigate and prosecute rogue trader ‘fraud’ due to its
low priority; the complexity of level two criminality and stretched police resources, all
arate NPCC portfolios reduces the scope to identify patterns in crime series offending,
fragmenting the intelligence picture. Whilst this crime lacks an enforcement arm and
straddles trading standards and police remits, rogue trader remains ‘nobody’s problem’.
Keywords
Policing, rogue trader crime, fraud, trading standards
Introduction
There is no recognised definition of ‘Doorstep Crime’. Both distraction burglary and
rogue trader offences are ‘doorstep’ crimes, referred to as ‘artifice crimes’ because such
methods often involve deceiving the victim by the use of a falsehood (a trick or a lie)
(Thornton et al., 2003) on the ‘doorstep’. Although rogue trader and distraction burglary
are found under different offence types, with the former constituting ‘fraud’ by false
Corresponding author:
Rachael Aplin, Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University, Lipman Building, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 8ST, UK.
Email: rachael.aplin@northumbria.ac.uk
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
ªThe Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0032258X211020038
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2022, Vol. 95(4) 617–636
618 The Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles 95(4)
there are many overlapping similarities (Day, 2015) in the modus operandi perpetrators
employ.
Rogue trading is defined as any incident where individual(s) target a consumer,
deliberately overcharging for unsatisfactory goods and/or services. This includes charg-
ing for unnecessary work, damaging property in order to obtain money or work, charging
for work not carried out, leaving work unfinished and using intimidating behaviour in
order to extort money (Barratt, 2012: 6; ACTSO, 2015, as cited in Day, 2017). In
summary, the offence includes not providing a service, providing a shoddy service,
over-charging or inflating the price (Lister and Wall, 2006; Phillips, 2017).
Limited research has been undertaken on doorstep crime (Gorden and Buchanan,
2013) with only a trickle of UK primary research studies carried out in the last 20 years,
and these predominantly focus on distraction burglary (Donaldson, 2003; Lister et al.,
2004; Steele et al., 2000; Thornton et al., 2003, 2005). This article focuses on rogue
trader criminality, in which there is a paucity of published research, having only
previously been examined in England and Wales by Day (2015, 2017, 2019) and
Phillips (2017).
The purpose of this paper is to expose findings and set these against more contem-
porary research to come to new knowledge around the policing and strategic governance
of rogue trader crime. Findings offer a rare insight into the operational workings and
strategic management of artifice crime in England and Wales, which will benefit poli-
cing, specifically the NPCC, Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers (ACTSO),
SOAC and Economic Crime Units leads. This paper charts the research undertaken to
date, acknowledging the ‘forgotten players’ in the c riminal justice system (Duggan,
2018: 3) and the impact of fraud and repeat victimisation on elderly victims. It explores
the various modus operandi that constitute rogue trader, delineates the efficacy of poli-
cing frauds as well as the current governance of England and Wales ‘artifice crime’
investigations. The methodology shall be explained along with the implications and
2006 along with the low priority attributed to such crimes, which makes the cultural
practice of decriminalising cases as ‘civil dispute’ more palatable, particularly in light of
radical cuts to services. Strategic issues are examined, in that the complexity of the crime
as a level 2 cross border threat, constituting organised crime in some cases, may deem it
inappropriate for front line response officers to investigate. Th e paper concludes by
evaluating the current strategic impasse of this specific fraud crime as having an absence
of clear governance, particularly since the dissolution of Operation Liberal.
Victimology
Significantly, despite older adults being the least frequently victimised demographic in
official statistics (Phillips, 2017), this pattern is reversed in the case of artifice crimes,
with perpetrators typically, deliberately and disproportionately targeting the elderly
(HMICFRS, 2019a; Thornton et al., 2003) because they are perceived as vulnerable
or potentially easy to steal from (CPS, 2019; HMICFRS, 2019a). The average age of
victims ranges from 77 years (Lister et al., 2004) to 81 years (Home Office, 2001;
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