In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law or criminal law, or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements.
Law enforcement in the United Kingdom is organised separately in each of the legal systems of the United Kingdom: England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Most law enforcement duties are carried out by those who hold the office of police constable of a territorial police force.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Dame Vera Baird is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against the defendant, an individual accused of breaking the law. Typically, the prosecutor represents the state or the government in the case brought against the accused person.
The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
A Police Community Support Officer, or as written in legislation Community Support Officer, is a uniformed member of police staff in England and Wales, a role created by Section 38(2) of the Police Reform Act 2002, which was given Royal Assent by Queen Elizabeth II on 24 July 2002. They are non-warranted but provided with a variety of police powers and the power of a constable in various instances by the forty-three territorial police forces in England and Wales and the British Transport Police.
An anti-social behaviour order is a civil order made in the United Kingdom against a person who had been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour. The orders were introduced by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1998, and continued in use until abolished in England and Wales by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 on 20 October 2014—although they continue to be used in Scotland and Northern Ireland. ASBOs were replaced in England and Wales by the civil injunctions and criminal behaviour orders. They were designed to address behaviours like intimidation, drunkenness, and violence by individuals and families, using civil orders rather than criminal sanctions. The orders restricted behaviour in some way, such as: prohibiting a return to a certain area or shop; or restricting public behaviours, such as swearing or drinking alcohol. Many saw the ASBOs as connected with young delinquents.
South Wales Police is one of the four territorial police forces in Wales. It is headquartered in Bridgend.
In England and Wales, a magistrates' court is a lower court which hears matters relating to summary offences and some triable either-way matters. Some civil law issues are also decided here, notably family proceedings. In 2010, there were 320 magistrates' courts in England and Wales; by 2020, a decade later, 164 of those had closed. The jurisdiction of magistrates' courts and rules governing them are set out in the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
A police caution is a formal alternative to prosecution in minor cases, administered by the police in England and Wales. It is commonly used to resolve cases where full prosecution is not seen as the most appropriate solution. Accepting a caution requires an admission of guilt.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales is a systematic victim study, currently carried out by Kantar Public on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Curated by the UK Data Service, it can be accessed for research on their website: https://ukdataservice.ac.uk. The survey seeks to measure the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking around 50,000 people aged 16 and over, living in private households, about the crimes they have experienced in the last year. From January 2009, 4,000 interviews were also conducted each year with children 10–15 years old, although the resulting statistics remain experimental. The survey is comparable to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted in the United States.
Crime in the United Kingdom describes acts of violent crime and non-violent crime that take place within the United Kingdom. Courts and police systems are separated into three sections, based on the different judicial systems of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. On introducing the Bill's second reading in the House of Lords, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said, "The aim of this Bill is to protect the victims of harassment. It will protect all such victims whatever the source of the harassment—so-called stalking behaviour, racial harassment, or anti-social behaviour by neighbours." Home Office guidance on the Act says "The legislation was always intended to tackle stalking, but the offences were drafted to tackle any form of persistent conduct which causes another person alarm or distress."
Crime statistics in the United Kingdom refers to the data collected in the United Kingdom, and that collected by the individual areas, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which operate separate judicial systems. It covers data related to crime in the United Kingdom. As with crime statistics elsewhere, they are broadly divided into victim studies and police statistics. More recently, third-party reporting is used to quantify specific under-reported issues, for example, hate crime.
Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. The offence is created by section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003:
(1) A person (A) commits an offence if—
(2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents.
(3) Sections 75 and 76 apply to an offence under this section.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.
Victims' rights are legal rights afforded to victims of crime. These may include the right to restitution, the right to a victims' advocate, the right not to be excluded from criminal justice proceedings, and the right to speak at criminal justice proceedings.
Domestic violence and abuse in the United Kingdom are a range of abusive behaviours that occur within relationships. Domestic violence or abuse can be physical, psychological, sexual, financial or emotional. In UK laws and legislation, the term "domestic abuse" is commonly used to encompass various forms of domestic violence. Some specific forms of domestic violence and abuse are criminal offences. Victims or those at risk of domestic abuse can also be provided with remedies and protection via civil law.
In England and Wales, the principle of the National Crime Recording Standard is to direct how statistics about notifiable offences are collected by police forces. An important distinction is made between notifiable offence recording and police incident reporting. The National Crime Recording Standard is about how statistics about notifiable offences are recorded. The National Standard for Incident Recording direct how information and statistics about police non-crime incidents are recorded. The Government has delegated the task of inspecting a police forces compliance with the National Crime Recording Standard to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire Rescue Service (HMICFS), previously called Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
