Fraud and white-collar crime

Our experts have been instructed in private prosecutions, including acting as expert witness on behalf of two of the defendants in DAS v Asplin, a case heard in the Crown Court at Southwark. Mr Asplin and two co-defendants were alleged to have benefitted from the purchase by DAS of shares in a private company. In particular, Mr Asplin was accused of artificially inflating the price paid by DAS, by virtue of his position as its CEO at the time the purchase took place. The evidence we provided related to the value of those shares. Mr Asplin and his co-defendant were acquitted of this particular charge.

We were also instructed in a case which related to the Court of Appeal decision in Dinglis v Dinglis [2019] EWHC 1664 (Ch). One of our experts provided evidence, in the form of reports and oral testimony, in one of the High Court cases which preceded this Court of Appeal decision (see also [2019] EWHC 1664 (Ch)), on behalf of the claimant regarding the extent to which there were shortfalls in income received and accounting discrepancies in the defendant company. The expert witness evidence we provided in this case was adopted in the High Court judgment.

A charity that had discovered apparent discrepancies in its petty cash records appointed us to investigate. We reviewed the accounting records and interviewed staff to understand the accounting systems in place. We prepared a report setting out the likely cause of the discrepancies, which we concluded was a member of staff withdrawing and misappropriating cash. The staff member in question had then manipulated the accounting records in an effort to hide these transactions. The charity reported the matter to the police and provided our report to them, and we were asked by the police to act as expert witness in the criminal action against the staff member. On the first day of the trial the staff member pleaded guilty to the charges against them.