Tax Office procedure called into question in alleged tax thief trial

Wednesday 04 January 2017

Details have emerged of potential security issues with the Taxes Office’s cash-processing procedure during the trial of a man accused of stealing over £800 of taxpayers' contributions.

Carl Frankum was accused of two counts of theft – £475 in 2012 and £350 in 2013 – from the States of Jersey in 2012 and 2013 when he worked in the Taxes Office. He pleads not guilty to both.

Yesterday afternoon, the Court heard that there was a “revamp” of the Payments and Electronic Submissions Team’s (PEST) cash-handling process just months after the first sum of £475 was declared missing.

During his cross-examination by defending Advocate Ian Jones, previous PEST Manager Mr Richard Golding detailed the process by which PEST officers were expected to handle cash payments of taxpayers’ ITIS Returns.

Under normal circumstances, the PEST officer would give one receipt to the taxpayer, taking the money and a carbon copy of the receipt up the back stairs to the third floor office for processing by himself or his deputy, Mr Dominic Winch.

Mr Golding admitted, however, that it was possible that PEST members had crossed the public space on occasions to use the lift, presenting a security concern. 

“You could potentially run into someone who knows what job you do in the department. It’s insecure,” he said.

He had encountered at least one instance where cash had been left on his desk while he had been out of office, and said that it also was plausible that colleagues had sometimes left money on top of their desks or in their own desk drawers – the keys for which all PEST members had access.

Advocate Jones, defending, responded: “I’m putting it to you that the conclusion is inescapable… what we’ve got is a system where the money… is accessible to certainly anyone in your team. What you have is a system where you have piles of cash in any one of four locations... where anybody has access to them. It couldn’t really be less secure, could it?”

In his closing statement, prosecuting Advocate Chris Baglin rebuked Advocate Jones’ suggestions that the handwriting on the receipts – the key piece of evidence linking Mr Frankum to the missing money – for each of the ITIS payments may not be his own.

Mr Frankum’s confirmation of his own signature during his three interviews with the Police “puts it beyond reasonable doubt that those three documents were written by the defendant,” Advocate Baglin argued.

Summing up for the defence, Advocate Jones criticised the investigative process for failing to provide evidence that Mr Frankum had attended work on the days of the alleged thefts and for not hiring a handwriting expert to analyse the receipts. 

Advocate Jones equally blasted the prosecution for not inviting the taxpayers who handed the allegedly stolen tax money to the Taxes Office to identify Mr Frankum.

“These what I will call failures, or gaps, in the investigation are unfair to Mr Frankum.”

Referring to the prosecution’s mention of a cheque Mr Frankum made that bounced on the same day the £475 was given to the Taxes Office, he said: “They’re taking coincidences and making the evidence fit their case.”

Likening the judicial process to a corridor, he added: “All the doors have to shut so there’s nowhere else for you to go so that you’re sure.

“The open doors are the areas of doubt and the prosecutions job and the police’s job is to close all these doors… I put it to you that there’s a huge amount of doors left open all over the place.”

During the case, Mr Frankum decided not to give evidence in Court, but instead had the defence read a letter from his GP documenting his battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma – an aggressive cancer he had battled during his working years.

Addressing the jury, the Judge – Bailiff William Bailhache – advised that “the fact he hasn’t given evidence does nothing to establish his guilt” and reminded them of Mr Frankum’s “good character”.

The jury are now in deliberations and expected to return a verdict this afternoon.