Memorandum from Scottish Illegal Money
Lending Unit
This memo is further to our meeting on 18 June
2007 and your invitation to submit requests for assistance.
The Scottish Illegal Money Lending Unit has
been operational since September 2004 and has demonstrated a good
degree of success over that time. However, there are issues which
if addressed would greatly facilitate the work of the Unit enabling
them to deal more efficiently and effectively with illegal money
lenders and thereby helping an increased number of people escape
the pernicious cycle of debt.
Currently the Unit does not have direct access
to the Police intelligence database (S.I.D.) and are reliant on
the Police to disseminate relevant intelligence and to carry out
searches on their behalf. Direct access to this database would
allow staff from the Unit who have specialist knowledge of the
investigations to carry out their own searches. Being able to
access this intelligence would allow investigations to be conducted
with more focus from the outset enabling the Unit to bring them
to a successful and speedy conclusion.
Unfortunately a problem that keeps arising concerns
the prosecution of illegal money lenders. As so little enforcement
work has been done in this area there is little experience amongst
Procurator Fiscals of dealing with this offence. Where a case
is being dealt with by way of Summary Procedure the Fiscal will
often not see it until the day of the hearing. This means that
they have little understanding of the issues surrounding the matter
and in the instances where a guilty plea is tendered may not draw
out the most important facts to be presented to the Sheriff in
order that an appropriate sentence may be imposed. It would be
of great benefit to the work of the team if Crown Office were
to assign a Procurator Fiscal, based at Crown Office, to assist
the team in strengthening their relationship with the service
and to ensure that cases concerning illegal money lending are
dealt with appropriately. This is not intended as a criticism
of the Procurator Fiscal Service we recognise that the Service
has to deal with an enormous amount of work, however the issues
that have arisen demonstrate that there are problems with the
system. Examples of the problems we have encountered can be provided
if required although we do not wish to single out individual Fiscals
for blame in what we perceive as faults with the system.
Securing access to the Scottish Intelligence
Database and ensuring that prosecutions concerning illegal money
lending are dealt with in a way that reflects the criminality
surrounding the offence and the impact that such individuals have
on their victims would greatly increase the effectiveness of the
Unit's work.
One remaining issue concerns the recovery of
assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act. The Unit are not authorised
to carry out their own financial investigations under this legislation
but have referred a number of individuals to Police Forces in
order that appropriate action can be taken. As a result a substantial
amount of assets have been identified and are currently the subject
of recovery actions. Any funds that are recovered are passed to
the Scottish Executive and fed back into communities which suffer
from crime. Any money recovered as a result of work undertaken
by the Unit is placed into this fund. The Unit has no input into
how the money is used and as the Unit is funded by Central Government
none of the recovered money is fed back into supporting its continued
work. The ability to access these funds would help to ensure the
future of the Unit which is currently only funded until March
2008. It is likely that without a specialist team to tackle illegal
money lending we would return to the situation where little enforcement
action is conducted in this area.
We would be grateful for any assistance that
the Committee could provide in resolving these issues.
Fiona Richardson
Team Leader
9 July 2007
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