Page 172 - Deception at work all chapters EBook

Planning Investigations and Legal Background for Tough Interviews 173

Cooperation

Often third parties, such as customers and suppliers, will cooperate voluntarily in a fraud
investigation and produce records in the hope that business relations with the corporate vic-
tim will not suffer. The victim’s position is obviously enhanced if in its Standard Terms and
Conditions of Business it has rights to audit the records of suppliers, distributors, agents and
others with whom it has a commercial relationship. This point is addressed on page [xref].

Civil Action for Discovery

Where the cooperation of third parties or defendants is unlikely to be forthcoming, lawyers
should be consulted with a view to taking a civil action, to obtain pre-emptive orders for im-
portant evidence in the possession of innocent third parties as well as the suspects.

Citizens’ Arrest

In the UK under Section 24(4)–(7) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, ‘any person
may arrest anyone without a warrant’ providing:

• the person to be arrested is in the act of committing an arrestable offence (this includes all
thefts and frauds);

• the person making the arrest has reasonable grounds for suspecting him to be committing
such an offence;

• where an arrestable offence has been committed … a person may arrest anyone who is guilty
of the offence or anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.

This is an important power, available to all citizens, especially if a person is caught while try-
ing to remove or destroy evidence. All that is necessary is to tell the person he is being arrested
and to take him to a police station or call for police assistance as soon as possible. Reasonable
force can be used (see Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1967), but great care must be taken
in all cases, especially when the villain is larger than the investigator and is with his mother
or dog.

Searches on the employer’s premises

Employers are entitled to search anything, but not any person, on their premises. This means
that desks, briefcases, cupboards or computers used by a suspect and owned by the victim may
be searched. This has become a potentially controversial area (because of human rights legisla-
tion) but the dangers can be minimized by covering the employer’s rights in a fraud policy.

Searches of third party premises

The owner of any premises, or a manager in charge of them, may give permission to search.
Permission may be revoked, in which case the documents or other evidence concerned must
be returned without delay, although copies may be retained.

The consent of third parties must not be obtained by deceit or trickery, otherwise the In-
vestigator could be accused of the serious criminal offence of obtaining property by deception
under the Theft Act 1968 et seq.