Fraud chief calls for formal plea bargains to win more convictions and save money

Judges and prosecutors should be able to strike deals with fraudsters offering them lighter sentences in return for guilty pleas, the new head of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said yesterday.

Robert Wardle, who starts work as director today, will ask ministers to consider a proposal to set up a formal system of plea bargaining based on the American model. Under the scheme, judges would be free to tell defendants what sentences to expect for pleas of guilty after representations from Serious Fraud Office lawyers.

Mr Wardle said that by putting plea bargaining on a legal footing, more criminals would be convicted of fraud while saving taxpayers millions of pounds in court costs each year. He told the Financial Times that he would like to see a "more structured approach to plea bargaining, perhaps slightly more on the American lines. One of the things defence lawyers often say to me is that their client might plead if he knew what he was in for. They want certainty.

"If we can come along at an early stage and say this is what we have got, and be able to write down what the story is and what the defence agree to, [we could] say to the judge 'This is the situation. Will you give an indication of what your going to do in terms of sentence'."

But critics argue that deals between prosecutors and lawyers for the defence can give the impression of justice being conducted in secret.

Two years ago, Lord Williams of Mostyn, when he was Attorney General, issued strict guidelines making clear that lawyers were not allowed to not get involved in plea bargaining. The guidelines outline the duty of prosecuting counsel not to take part in any plea- bargains and help them to resist such moves by judges.

The new guidance follows a number of cases in which defendants received light sentences after deals were struck without telling the victims.

In one case, Robin Peverett, a former headmaster of Dulwich College Preparatory School, in Kent, was given an 18-month suspended sentence after a plea-bargain deal despite pleading guilty to nine charges of indecent assault of pupils between 1969 and 1977. Lord Williams exercised his right of appeal over the sentence but the Court of Appeal said it could not be altered because the prosecution had been involved in the plea bargain.

In another case, a judge at Canterbury Crown Court was "enraged" when prosecuting counsel refused to take part in a plea bargain and meet the judge and the defence counsel in private, to discuss sentencing in a case in which six asylum-seekers were involved in a street fight.

Some senior barristers want the plea-bargain system made formal and brought into the open, rather than banned, in line with recommendations of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in 1993.

Under reforms of the criminal justice system going through Parliament, ministers have rejected plea bargaining in complex fraud cases in favour of using judge-only trials. Ministers hope their proposals will free juries from complex fraud trials, which can take many months and cost millions of pounds.

A spokesman for Mr Wardle said the new director would be looking at a number of issues including an enlarged remit of investigation for the Serious Fraud Office.