ABSTRACT
History shows the reader many examples of fraud on the grand scale from the South Sea Bubble to the great railway and banking frauds of the mid-nineteenth century. Both Dickens and Trollope offer a glimpse of serious fraud on a par with anything the people have experienced from the 1980s. In the end, of course, assuming the case surmounts those hurdles, the prosecution has to satisfy a jury so they are sure that the defendant is guilty as charged. The prosecution in a serious fraud case would be able to gauge much more precisely which of the huge volume of documents in its possession would be likely to be relevant to the defence, and often it would be possible to dispense with many witnesses. The prosecution, having served a case statement and disclosed all the witness statements and documentary evidence upon which it relies, is obliged to make further disclosure.
