A response to the recent Guardian article, featuring Edmonds Marshall McMahon.
It has never been clearer that there is an absolute necessity for private prosecutions – particularly in cases of fraud, cryptocurrency and complex financial crime.
The criminal justice system is under unprecedented strain, with public resources stretched and investigative capacity diminished. In this environment, the right to bring a private prosecution has become not merely an option but a vital safeguard for the rule of law.
The recent Guardian article exploring the rise of private prosecutions highlights this reality; there has been a 3,000% increase in private prosecutions since 2014, reflecting a justice system struggling to keep pace with the growth and complexity of modern crime. The same article points out that serious, organised fraud involving multiple victims is routinely ignored by the police, who are inevitably unable to address the sheer scale of offending. In 2024 alone, reported fraud increased by 31%, yet only 6% of Action Fraud reports are passed to the police, and of those, just 8% result in a court ruling.
These figures illustrate a crisis of enforcement – not of law, but of capacity. Victims of fraud, deception and cybercrime are too often left without redress, even where strong evidence exists. Private prosecutions restore that missing accountability. They ensure that complex wrongdoing can still be investigated and prosecuted before an independent court, maintaining public confidence in a system that would otherwise appear unresponsive.
Private prosecutions have a long and respected history in English law. Some of the most significant cases of recent decades have relied on this mechanism, from Doreen Lawrence’s private prosecution in the early 1990s after the initial failure to prosecute her son Stephen’s killers, to corporate and financial crime cases that exposed serious misconduct and led to criminal convictions. One of the most prominent of these was the prosecution of businessman Ketan Somaia, privately brought by Edmonds Marshall McMahon. In that case, following a £12 million investment fraud spanning several jurisdictions, EMM secured Somaia’s conviction at the Old Bailey in 2014 – one of the largest private prosecutions ever undertaken in the UK. Another more prominent prosecution was that of the former CEO of a large legal expenses company where the fraud had been long -running and highly complex; another of the largest private prosecutions in the UK. More recently, EMM successfully prosecuted Edna Da Silva Vieira & others for a sophisticated charity-fraud scheme against Macmillan Cancer Support, where hundreds of bank accounts were used to defraud a cancer-charity grants system during the pandemic – again acting where the state had not.
We were grateful to be acknowledged in The Guardian as the market leader in private prosecutions, achieving a conviction rate exceeding 90%. Since our founding in 2012, Edmonds Marshall McMahon has conducted hundreds of prosecutions on behalf of victims who would otherwise have been denied justice. Many have involved large-scale fraud, cryptocurrency theft and sophisticated financial crime – cases that required deep investigative expertise and international coordination.
Properly conducted private prosecutions uphold the same evidential and public-interest tests as those brought by the Crown Prosecution Service. They are conducted transparently, under judicial oversight, and within the same procedural framework as state prosecutions. The difference lies in capacity and commitment: private prosecutions ensure that serious criminal conduct cannot escape accountability simply because of limited public resources.
As the justice system continues to face growing backlogs and funding constraints, the need for reputable private prosecution specialists has never been greater. These cases do not undermine public justice- they reinforce it, ensuring that the law remains a living force rather than a promise deferred.
At Edmonds Marshall McMahon, we remain committed to delivering justice through fair, proportionate and effective prosecutions. Our mission is simple: to ensure that serious criminal conduct is investigated, prosecuted and punished – wherever the state cannot act, and wherever the public interest demands that it should.
Kate McMahon – Partner, Edmonds Marshall McMahon
