NCA described as `incompetent` after trial collapse

A judge has described the National Crime Agency (NCA) as “incompetent” following the collapse of a multi-million pound fraud trial, costing taxpayers £5 million.

The case, relating to an NCA-led investigation involving a series of frauds against companies and institutions including Chester Zoo, Care UK, AB InBev and South Essex College, was stopped by Judge Wendy Joseph QC after four weeks when it emerged evidence had gone missing, was misleading or had not been investigated properly.

The court heard how detectives did not have the software to grab pictures from CCTV – and were reduced to taking screen shots on their phones – before a prosecution application for a six-week adjournment was rejected.

The jury was subsequently discharged from returning verdicts against all seven defendants, with the NCA errors said to be “even beyond negligence”.

The prosecution initially claimed that £37 million was laundered from the organisations between April 2013 and March 2014, when payments to building contractors were intercepted and quickly dispersed through hundreds of bank accounts.

However, after just five days of evidence it emerged that there were a series of mistakes in the timeline prepared by the NCA, and further investigation over the last three weeks while the jury did not sit, revealed that the total laundered was closer to £40 million.

It also emerged that more than 200 bank accounts involved in the transfer of payments had not been investigated, while several exhibits had not been examined and a mistaken identification of a suspect during NCA surveillance had not been disclosed to the defence.

Judge Joseph said: “On the face of it they were just little things, mistakes in mathematics, typographical errors that should have been very easily sorted out.

“But as each problem has been sorted out another has emerged and each time problems have been worse and worse.

“The picture that emerged was the documentation that we call the timeline is in many ways wholly misleading.”

She added: “Either because of the size of the case or because of financial constraints the NCA`s case team chose to ignore various routes of investigation including bank accounts.

“They applied a forensic strategy outside that applied by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) without telling the CPS or counsel.

“The NCA case team failed to apply the disclosure protocol which they were required to follow.”

The court also heard that several exhibits had not been examined and a mistaken identification of a suspect during NCA surveillance had not been disclosed to the defence.

Judge Joseph concluded that there is no doubt the NCA has “failed” the public interest in this case, and that there can be no excuse or justification for the combination of multiple failures that occurred.

The NCA refused to go into any detail relating to the collapse of the trial.

A spokesperson said: “The NCA is proud of its conviction rate, which was 93 per cent in its first six months.

“We do not want any prosecution to fail, particularly if there is anything our own officers can do to prevent that. We are determined to understand what happened here and to ensure it cannot happen again. An internal inquiry is now underway.”