Yesterday, Matt Randle, Catch22’s Director of Justice, attended a roundtable hosted by Stop Scams UK on the future of scams policy.
The roundtable was chaired by Baroness Nicky Morgan and attended by regulatory and industry representatives such as ICO and CIFAS. Also in attendance was the Government’s newly appoint anti-fraud champion, Anthony Brown MP, whose role is to drive forward the government’s anti-fraud strategy, which aims to pursue fraudsters and protect victims.
Catch22, which delivers victim services in Hertfordshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, supports victims of fraud and scams to recover lost money and move forward from the trauma of the crime. In fact, Hertfordshire Beacon’s Fraud hub has, since January 2020, supported service users to recover over £2.5 million in losses.
Matt was able to feed in unique insight and experience from the delivery of our victim services, providing perspective on the needs of victims. For instance, we know that £373 million was lost by repeat victims of fraud in the financial year 2019-2020, and so highlighted that, to tackle the fraud crisis effectively, it will require well-resourced and bespoke victim support to minimise likelihood of revictimisation. In particular, he highlighted the plea of victims disproportionately likely to be targeted through the illicit data sharing by perpetrators with ‘suckers lists’ and other such tools, emphasising how targeted holistic support and awareness raising can reduce this.
Matt also emphasised the discrepancy in victims of fraud and the number of cases which are investigated by the police, supporting the call for the Government to place a mandated levy on tech platforms to finance the resource required to investigate fraud.