Plea bargaining move considered

Lord Goldsmith's proposals follow last July's review of fraud

The Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has announced a series of anti-fraud measures including setting up a working group to consider plea bargaining.

The group will examine whether fraudsters in England and Wales should be allowed to receive lower sentences if they admit to their crimes.

Lord Goldsmith backed having a National Fraud Reporting Centre (NFRC) to gather information from fraud victims.

But he rejected raising the maximum sentence for fraud from 10 to 14 years.

The City of London Police will be made the national leader on fraud cases in England and Wales.

Widespread harm

Lord Goldsmith accepted that the criminal justice system does not currently deal with the serious problem of fraud very well.

"Fraud harms us all and research released last week shows that, in monetary terms, actually the harm from fraud is very much on a par as that from class A drugs," he told the BBC

"It amounts to about £330 for every man, woman and child in the country."

He said that plea-bargaining had provoked some strong support and strong opposition in a public consultation.

Andrew Gordon from PricewaterhouseCoopers said: "Plea bargaining appears to work in the US to stimulate trials of so-called white-collar criminals."