17
Examination of witnesses
ACC Jim Pearce and Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews.
Q29 The Chair: Good afternoon and welcome to this public evidence session of the Modern Slavery Act Committee. My name is Frances O’Grady and I am the Chair of the committee. Before I introduce our witnesses, I warn you that we may have to break for votes at some point. If we do, we will suspend proceedings for 10 to 15 minutes before coming back.
I am pleased to welcome Assistant Chief Constable Jim Pearce, the NPCC lead for modern slavery and organised immigration crime, and Superintendent Tam Matthews, the unit commander for Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit. Thank you very much for giving up your time to join us today.
The committee has already heard evidence about how difficult it can sometimes be to get evidence from victims in modern slavery investigations. We would like to hear what methods are being used to tackle this. In particular, have you made use of evidence-led prosecutions, and do you have any update on the role of navigators?
ACC Jim Pearce: Good afternoon. I will start with an overview of investigations and why modern slavery is so complex, and then turn to Tam to get into some of the other aspects in answer to your question.
In the year to date, 4,318 investigations have been recorded in total. They are complex mainly because of the hidden nature of modern slavery, which makes it difficult to detect and investigate. That hidden nature means that victims are isolated, threatened or coerced behind the scenes. It is not as overt as some other crimes that we know about.
Often, there is an international nature to modern slavery: victims are foreign nationals. If they are here in this country or the modern slavery offence occurred in a different country, or if they return to the country they have come from or another country outside the UK, it becomes difficult to engage with the victims and to keep them connected. We will talk about the role of the victim navigators and how to improve it.
We also know that much of modern slavery sits within organised crime, which by its very nature is complicated and difficult to dismantle. There is a degree of poly-criminality, so it becomes really difficult to identify numerous perpetrators or facilitators to prosecute those involved.
Based on this, and understanding the numbers of investigations in existence, we focus primarily on victims when they come to our knowledge. We look very carefully at how we might be able to protect the evidence that they give and give them the confidence to speak to police. That is our main focus. In order to do so, it is extremely helpful to have trained resources and, primarily, to understand exploitation as an investigator role and the difference between a focus team and a detective who works in a larger unit that is having to deal with all sorts of other crimes as well.
I have mentioned the victim-centred approach and the understanding that we cannot do this alone. We get successful prosecutions by working with our partners, particularly NGOs and government departments. Early engagement with the CPS helps with this, as does wider training to support that. I turn to Tam for some more of the detail.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: We are quite unusual as an NPCC thematic portfolio in that we were set up after the 2016 independent review of the Modern Slavery Act by barrister Caroline Haughey. That identified a real gap in police awareness, understanding and consistency of approach. We were originally set up as a transformation unit to improve how police forces identified and responded to modern slavery. As a unit, we provide a wealth of material for policing. We produce comprehensive investigation guides, share best practice and debrief investigations for lessons learned so that we share what we can from a central perspective.
We are also directly involved in training officers. We produced or assisted with the victim liaison officer courses and the modern slavery investigation courses. This is in addition to the fact that front-line staff will have a modern slavery understanding and awareness session as part of the College of Policing-mandated curriculum.
As a programme, we also annually assess forces against modern slavery standards. We have come up with this in consultation with others. We assess forces from how their leadership and governance works around modern slavery through to how they deal with victims, investigations and intelligence. We are also looking all the time to learn from best practice in other areas of business. I am sure you will be aware of Operation Soteria, which is about being victim-centred and suspect-focused and taking the context into account so that we get the most appropriate outcome for the victim.
However, we absolutely recognise that there is always more to do. In particular, we have some really good work with the Crown Prosecution Service that will result in a number of thematic subgroups that are looking at how we improve the system—those CJ outcomes.
ACC Jim Pearce: I will just develop that further before I speak about victim navigators. If I were to summarise best evidence, we clearly want the victim to be co-operative and supportive in providing evidence to police. That is the best evidence to get. But if we can collate context around that and collate best evidence using focused resources and liaison officers relating, for example, to the financial aspects, environment and location, we can secure prosecutions—we hope with the victim, but not necessarily so. It also gives the victim confidence to keep engaged with policing.
Moving on to navigators, I think Tam and I would both say that they are a fantastic achievement. A pilot project has been rolled out recently, which we dearly hope will be rolled out across the country. Navigators were established by Justice and Care, and designed in partnership with us and the National Crime Agency. Their role as a third party, working with law enforcement but not being law enforcement, reassures victims that they are talking to people who really care and understand the scenarios and situations they are going through. They are there primarily to support survivors, gain the best evidence that Tam and I have just been speaking about, support and protect victims and, ultimately, gain criminal justice outcomes at the end of that.
From the pilot information we have received, we understand that 92% of survivors will engage with navigators. Only 44% will engage with police officers. You can see the impact that has. As I said, there is a view to rolling this out across all the regional and organised crime units—the ROCUs. There are nine of those at the moment; navigators operate in only a couple. We are seeking and working with them for finance to ensure a national rollout over the next two years.
As I said, we speak highly of the victim care units. That is not to say that in policing we do not do something similar. We have victim liaison officers. They do not have exactly the same role, but it is similar in terms of support. They understand exploitation and the issues and complexities of modern slavery, but they are police officers at the end of the day. That combination of investigator, victim liaison officer and victim navigator tends to secure the best evidence that we seek.
The Chair: Thank you.
Q30 Baroness Hamwee: Could you tell us about the background of the victim navigators—what experiences they come from? I suspect that police officers are more sophisticated in these areas now than when the anecdote I am about to mention happened. I am aware of a victim—a witness—who, in a police interview, was in touch by text with her trafficker, whom she regarded throughout and never stopped regarding as her boyfriend. Do victim navigators sit in on interviews?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: The backdrop of this is that it was in response to trying to improve victim engagement. It was a charity-led initiative in partnership with police forces and the National Crime Agency to try to address those gaps and challenges. Navigators aim to support survivors and assist investigations. They are an independent advocate acting on behalf of and as the conduit between the police and prosecution that is ongoing.
ACC Jim Pearce: Justice and Care would be able to give you a bit more detail about the people it works with and their backgrounds. In relation to the case that you mentioned, that is not uncommon. I have a quote from the officer in charge of Operation Rustic, from Hertfordshire police. They said: “Op Rustic is a complex investigation into modern-day slavery offences, where an Albanian OCG”—organised crime group—“had taken girls from Hertfordshire to locations in London with a view to sexually exploit them. The suspects have been arrested, charged and await trial. This happened only because Holly”— the victim navigator—"was brought on board by specialist victim navigators, as the girls who were victims of the offences were reluctant to work with officers”. Bear in mind the scenario that you mentioned, where there is constant pressure on the victim from the perpetrators.
The officer explained that Holly was able to support the victims “by assisting them with housing, education and additional welfare needs, bringing one of the victims into Hertfordshire police for an ABE interview”—people are nodding, so I assume you understand that—"and arranging pre-trial court visits”. There is a social care background coming out here. The officer said: “She continued to support them throughout this lengthy investigation”. The investigations are indeed lengthy, as we will probably find out later in this session. The officer continued: “Through her efforts the girls are trusting of police and are willing to attend court”. That is a little story to bring this to life, similar to the one that you raised.
The Chair: Thank you.
Q31 Baroness Butler-Sloss: I declare that I am a co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and a vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation.
I want to talk to you both about the legislation—the Nationality and Borders Act and the Illegal Migration Act—which must have made life rather more difficult for you. How do you assess the operational impact of those two bits of legislation?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: It is really difficult at this stage. It is almost too early, even for the Nationality and Borders Act. That Act had two significant impacts on modern slavery. First, it raised the threshold for making a reasonable grounds decision. That higher level of evidence is not always obtainable. Whether it is for somebody from another country or for UK victims, it can be difficult to achieve, so there are concerns that those individuals are potentially not getting the support of the NRM while those decisions are made. We know that they are taking much longer than they had been previously.
Secondly, there is the public order disqualification aspect. Although we, as policing, do not specifically make use of that—
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I was going to ask you about that. Do you use it?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: No. It is the role of the competent authorities or the Foreign National Offender Returns Command to make those decisions.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Are British people caught on the public order issue, under Section 63, as much as people from overseas? I had not realised that.
ACC Jim Pearce: It is applicable to all. As Tam said, the decision whether a public order disqualification comes into force would sit with the single competent authority. That can happen at the time of the original reasonable grounds assessment within the NRM, but it could happen equally during the investigation as well. A reasonable grounds assessment may well come back, the person is put into the national referral mechanism, at some point later something happens to that individual—of course, they are a victim being supported, but they may well have committed a crime or otherwise—so the single competent authority decides to exclude them from further continuation within the NRM. At that point it would make no difference whether they were foreign nationals or British.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: What about the fact that they may have been coerced, as a victim, into committing crimes? I am thinking, for example, of Vietnamese boys who are locked into somebody’s borrowed property and spend seven days a week feeding the cannabis.
ACC Jim Pearce: That is another very real example. Section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act would come into play there. That is the defence of whether somebody has been exploited or otherwise. That section cannot be used for serious offences such as murder, sexual offending and so on. Obviously, the public disqualification would come into play at that point. An interesting fact is that modern slavery offences cannot be used for Section 45. You may well question us on Section 45 in more detail in a moment. That is relevant, because somebody could be a victim of modern slavery and over time start to become a perpetrator themselves, and that obviously complicates the matter.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: That happens particularly in brothels, does it not?
ACC Jim Pearce: It could, but it could definitely occur in the scenario you mentioned about cannabis cultivation. To bring this back to the question about the Nationality and Borders Act, as Tam said the reasonable grounds threshold has moved so that, whereas about 80% or so were being put through as a positive decision, as of quarter 3 of 2023 we are seeing it more in the range of 60%. In effect, fewer people now get entered into the NRM. If I may, I will move on to the Illegal Migration Act.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I was going to ask you about Section 22 in particular, which you may remember is the question of facilitating co-operation of victims with basically criminal proceedings.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: Again, as you know, these provisions in the Illegal Migration Act are not yet in force, but there is certainly some concern about the definition of co-operating with law enforcement. It is not wholly defined at this stage, so we are working closely with the Home Office and our law enforcement partners to try to get clarification on it. Certainly, the IMA may mean that it is more difficult to build trust and confidence with victims in that short period or, indeed, victims may fear the consequences if they report crime to us. As ACC Pearce said earlier, the fact that individuals may get removed from the UK means that it will be difficult to continue the investigation and the dialogue and make sure that they have support in their origin country.
ACC Jim Pearce: It would be helpful from a policing point of view to clarify the 30-day commitment period—when it starts, what it means and how it will operationalise in due course. For me, that is a question.
Q32 Lord Smith of Hindhead: Our role is to look at this legislation and to recommend to the Government and indeed Parliament in what ways it may be working and in what ways it may be deficient. Do you have any observations to make on how the Act is working, based on the statistic that only around 1% of modern slavery investigations result in prosecutions? ACC Pearce, you mentioned earlier that there have been 4,318 investigations to date. Does that mean that there have been about 43 prosecutions to date?
ACC Jim Pearce: Your maths is spot on but, sadly, the timings are not. An investigation might take a number of years, so for those 4,000, it does not necessarily compute that the percentage rate is within the same time period. At the moment, we are working at just under a 2% prosecution rate, which I totally appreciate does not sound fantastic at all. That has been the same for about the last five quarters. To date, we are at about 1.81%.
To put that in context, hidden crime such as domestic abuse and sexual offences sit at a similar prosecution rate—1% to 3%. All crime sits at a 7% prosecution rate. They seem to be very low numbers, but the way that the Home Office counting rules work is that we record crime against victims, so you could have one perpetrator and 30 victims. That creates one investigation but a number of victims. It is great if that comes to a prosecution, but if it does not, obviously there is quite a big hole in the maths and the gap.
I am not seeking to justify that low prosecution rate, by the way. I totally understand that we have ambitions; we wish to work with the CPS and our other law enforcement partners about improving this, but I wanted to put it in some context.
Lord Smith of Hindhead: What could we recommend that might help you achieve the figures that you want? It is cause and effect, to be fair. We spend a lot of time speaking about the victims—asking whether we have cared for them and how they can be looked after—but seem not to spend so much time thinking about how we can prosecute and lock up the perpetrators of this so that there will be fewer victims.
ACC Jim Pearce: We would not disagree with that. I would suggest a couple of things. Looking at the NRM data, in 52% of cases the suspects are not identified, and in 32% of cases the victims will not support the prosecution moving forward. Again, you can work out that that means a smaller pool of victims for us to work with to get prosecutions. We could do a number of things to improve that victim engagement, which we have spoken about already. You are absolutely right: if we are suspect-focused and we seek to use best evidence, we can take out those suspects.
To support us with this, we need to look at wider prevention and use of orders. We are keen to make a couple of suggestions to make those more robust; I will perhaps turn to Tam in a moment for that. I also suggest that this is a hidden crime, and there are ways to work out where victims are—and therefore suspects—using data and information sharing. We would be particularly keen to have that flexible approach with the health service, because we know that that is a setting where issues get disclosed but perhaps the police do not find out about it, or, if they do, it is often later on down the line. We totally understand that this is a very complex system, but we would of course support speeding up some of the work that sits within the NRM.
Lord Smith of Hindhead: You could let us have a wish list of things that would help you.
ACC Jim Pearce: We could certainly provide something more formal in evidence to you.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: I will just pick up on the orders. When a further modern slavery strategy was being considered, in around 2022, we made some recommendations as a programme to try to strengthen orders. We recommended allowing courts to issue orders on acquittal of slavery offences to manage any residual risk of offending and protect victims. We also recommended that courts up their monitoring conditions on individuals. Currently, forces can apply for orders only for individuals who live or are in their area. Much of the crime we have described is county lines—it is cross border—so it would be really helpful if that could be extended to allow forces to remove that restriction.
Lord Smith of Hindhead: Would it help if the PCCs were encouraged to get a bit more involved or promote this human trafficking issue?
ACC Jim Pearce: I am biased, because this is my portfolio. Clearly, if I have politicians, PCCs, chief constables and partner agencies focused on my area of work, I will be delighted. What does that actually mean? If there is strategic leadership that sits within a geographic and force area, we know that focus falls out of that—that is good governance. A strategic assessment sits within most of those force areas, as do police and crime plans. If exploitation and, more specifically, modern slavery and human trafficking are part of those, we see operational delivery. There is no doubt about that.
Clearly, I cannot influence a police and crime plan; that is for a commissioner with their public. However, if we see that materialise within that area of business, because PCCs really understand this business and know what is happening within their communities with this hidden harm, we tend to see that exploitation sits within those wider plans. That makes it easier for me to influence operational delivery.
Chair, may I just come back about some of the things that we are doing to improve the prosecution rate?
The Chair: Yes. Before you do so, Baroness Butler-Sloss wants to ask a quick follow-up question.
Q33 Baroness Butler-Sloss: How far is it the case that the CPS is not taking the prosecution forward? Or is it that the police are not sending it to the CPS?
ACC Jim Pearce: It is almost as though you read my mind, because I was going to tell you about the CPS working group. It is a national group that I have set up with the CPS lead for modern slavery. We are creating a comprehensive action plan after speaking to tactical persons who are involved in the CPS as lawyers, and more widely into barristers and courts, as well as our own investigators in the police. We have a good, solid evidence base there. That will generate some positive activity through something called the prosecution oversight group.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: I chair that group. It is a national group where we look at the trends, the emerging threats, the prosecution numbers and what we can do collectively, as law enforcement agencies, in relation to that. We are just looking to refresh the governance structure, but it is key, because it enables you to get the practitioners around the table so that you can really debate the challenges, issues and initiatives. Our role, as the programme, is to feed those upwards, representing the concerns of the service and suggesting ways to make things better.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Are you using Caroline Haughey to advise you, or any other lawyers? She is basically the lead lawyer on this.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: Absolutely, yes. She has done a number of engagement sessions with us, and I know that she has also been into a number of forces. That has been most helpful.
Q34 Baroness Hamwee: You have already mentioned Section 45. I do not want to speculate, so I shall ask you why it is not more often applied in practice.
ACC Jim Pearce: It is a very fair question. A Section 45 defence gets brought in where a perpetrator for a crime feels or says that they are a victim of modern slavery themselves. Effectively, they committed the crime because they were forced into doing so.
I have mentioned already that it does not apply to serious crimes and it does not apply to modern slavery itself. We see this, practically speaking, in the county lines set-up, where we have under-18s in particular, but often adults as well, who have been used to commit crime—in other words, traffic drugs—but they were forced into doing so, or, equally, as has already been described, in the cultivation of cannabis in cannabis farms, and people who are forced into working in that.
Why do we not necessarily see this? Often it is not until right at the end of an investigation; sometimes it is even at court. That was certainly the case a little while ago, but guidance is coming out, through policing and through the CPS, to help investigators to understand that they need to start to explore and ask these questions earlier rather than later. It might not come from the victim themselves or from their defence, but investigators need to explore this early.
The complications that proceed from this are that, once a Section 45 defence comes about and therefore the perpetrator is deemed potentially a victim, they are put into the national referral mechanism. We wait for the reasonable grounds to come through. If that is a positive, the CPS waits for the conclusive grounds to materialise before it will authorise a charge.
There are ways around that. The CPS can make decisions around it, but that tends to be the default position. There is an understanding in the room that that conclusive grounds decision is taking some time at the moment. That means, effectively, that the original investigations are put on hold until it has been made. Realistically, it is years until we get to that final position. If it comes back earlier, of course, the CPS can make decisions about whether to continue the prosecution for the original offence. Again, there is a degree of complexity.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: I will add a couple of other things. As to a programme, I have talked about the guidance that we produce for policing. We produce comprehensive guidance on the employment of Section 45. We also debrief cases, so we share that learning with forces.
It is also important to say that we do not have an evidence base on Section 45 at this time, because the defence can be brought into an investigation at any time, so it is really difficult to quantify numbers at any point in an investigation. We are working with the Home Office to try to develop an annual data return from forces so that we can get some specific information to see exactly where the challenges are and, indeed, how we can improve that.
Baroness Hamwee: I read somewhere that defence teams—solicitors, I suppose, to start with—are not terribly aware of the Section 45 position. Please do not tell me that this is not within your experience. Is it something that needs to be disseminated to the profession?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: It is probably not something we can comment on specifically.
Baroness Hamwee: That is fine. It was an unfair question.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: It is a question for the Crown Prosecution Service.
ACC Jim Pearce: What is within our gift—and guidance has gone out—is that it is on investigators to test that position early. The earlier that is done, the better. In a way, although it is up to the suspect, and so their defence, to raise it as a defence, investigators can ensure that this is tested early, so that we do not do months and months of work on a case involving cultivation of cannabis, trafficking of drugs and so on that ends up in court only for it to be raised there. There is a degree that does sit within our influence.
Baroness Hamwee: You have an interest in making it known.
ACC Jim Pearce: Exactly.
Baroness Hamwee: The recent immigration legislation will affect Section 45. You have talked about how it is early days. It is not even as far as early days yet, in some cases, but is there anything that you would like to add about that and the impact of recent case law about whose evidence is expert evidence? I am referring to the comments made by the Strasbourg court, which were picked up by the Court of Appeal. Do you have anything that you would like to add about those? If not, I can move on.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: We would probably like to take that one away, if that is okay, just to get into the mechanics of it. Then, absolutely, we can provide you with some information.
Q35 Baroness Hamwee: You have already made comments about how a victim can become a perpetrator. Expanding that a bit, do you think that the range of offences in Schedule 4 is appropriate? Should there be another look at that? Should some of the offences, such as those involving cannabis farms, brothels and possessing a firearm, be reviewed?
ACC Jim Pearce: That is a really good question. I do not fall out with the serious offences being included in that. I am speaking off the top of my head now, but a couple of times we have mentioned modern slavery sitting within the schedule and whether there might be some value in relooking at that position. The difficulty we have is that there is no great evidence base to draw from. A lot of it is anecdotal, but it may well be that we can take that away as a programme to revisit and make some recommendations at a later point.
Baroness Hamwee: We would be glad of that. I was using cannabis farms and so on as examples. Modern slavery is another.
Q36 Lord Randall of Uxbridge: I guess that financial investigations can make a crucial difference to getting a successful prosecution. How are they incorporated into modern slavery cases?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: Financial investigation is imperative, particularly for evidence-led prosecutions. We absolutely recognise that. To give some context, financial investigators in the service are a finite resource. Equally, it is often difficult to retain them because they are so specialised.
We have provided comprehensive guidance on getting financial investigation right at the outset of an inquiry, because it can really assist. We also work really closely with our partners in the regional organised crime units: the DWP-HMRC Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce and others. It is really a collective effort when it comes to that financial picture.
As a programme, we recognise this gap. We have recruited a specialist financial investigator, who has delivered various training sessions, including workshops and other things, to police forces. There is certainly more work to do to make sure that it is involved right at the outset of an investigation. We recognise that financial investigation that sits within this uncovers the best evidence we spoke about at the top of the evidence giving.
If I may, I will bring this to life with an example, Op Houston, a case where a female victim was subjected to domestic servitude for 16 years by a female landlady. The victim had little freedom and no money, and was made to work long hours caring for the offender’s children and performing household chores. You can see how this is hidden, quite frankly. When it did come to light, the involvement of the financial investigator uncovered crucial evidence. It revealed that the offender and her family owned multiple properties that they rented out. Additionally, benefits were fraudulently claimed in the victim’s name, creating more income.
Without the financial investigator’s involvement, the offender would have been charged only with fraud. However, the best evidence supplied meant that the offenders were then charged with controlling and coercive behaviour towards the victim, extensive property ownership and withholding the wages that the victim should have received. In court, a confiscation order was issued and £198,000 was returned to the victim. The offender was sentenced to six years and eight months for keeping that person in slavery.
That is a good crime to demonstrate where financial investigators can really help. Quite frankly, we would love more, as with every thematic.
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: An arm of the programme is the network of regional co-ordinators whom we employ but who sit in the regional organised crime unit. They are the direct programme conduit out to individual forces. They work really closely with their forces. This is exactly the type of job where their input will have assisted in bringing that all together. They are experts in their field. They can point into the programme and out, which is a really good and valuable asset.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge: I am being rather dense here. You said that these investigators are a scarce commodity. Who calls them in, and when? How do they prioritise? You mentioned this other case of fraud. If you have a suspected case of modern slavery and they say, “We’ve got a big fraud case on. I’m sorry, we just haven’t got the capacity”, who decides? Is it they themselves? How do you get that priority?
ACC Jim Pearce: It is a really good question. There is a tasking system that sits within each force and level, and at regional level. Within that tasking system, as practised, there is a degree of looking at threat, risk and harm for each of these investigations. They will be raised up and down according to the threat level. At some point, the senior investigating officer will decide how the investigation will be developed and what tactics will be used to assist it. They will take that into the tasking system that I have just described and, effectively, bid for resources to work on some of these types of jobs, in the same way as they bid for other serious and organised crime, as you have described.
What we are advocating, though, is that this work gets highlighted within the tasking process and that the threat, risk and harm that sits behind it is recognised, so that it is more likely than not to be able to attract the type of resources that we have been referencing. It is also the case that they do not necessarily work on this full-time. They are able to do work for these particular jobs alongside loads of other ones as well.
Q37 Lord Randall of Uxbridge: You mentioned earlier that very often there is an international aspect to these types of crimes. How much co-operation is there with international partners outside the EU, and can it be improved?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: This is an area where we really rely on our National Crime Agency colleagues in particular to reach into Interpol, Europol and others. There are also mechanisms such as the tackling organised exploitation teams that sit within the regional organised crime units. They specialise in providing that advice, liaising with those international partners.
Then we can create a joint investigation team. That is a collaborative effort between judges, prosecutors and law enforcement from two or more countries that work together on a transnational crime investigation. Those are very much happening in the UK. The Joint International Crime Centre is the central hub that co-ordinates and prioritises those international collaborations.
ACC Jim Pearce: Just to explain, financial investigation can take many forms. There are teams that sit within the National Crime Agency, working internationally and out, on some of those high-end jobs. They also sit within our regional crime units, working across forces. They may not own the investigation, but they can help and advise.
There are also financial investigators who sit within forces separately. We also do a lot of training to skill up wider detectives so that they have a good understanding of what they can ask for and what they should be looking for in a crime investigation. They can do some of that work as well and be guided by those who have the specialist skills in this area.
Lord Randall of Uxbridge: So you are doing quite a lot of training centrally.
ACC Jim Pearce: Exactly that.
The Chair: With the agreement of the committee, I wonder whether we can sneak in our final question, from Lord Kempsell.
Q38 Lord Kempsell: I will ask some general questions about policing this crime and then some specific questions about the slavery and trafficking risk orders and the slavery and trafficking prevention orders.
First, generally, given the huge burden that there is on operational police at every level, are you confident that enough specialist resource is being dedicated to tackling modern slavery offences?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: We would never be satisfied, honestly. When the strategy was being considered for rewrite, we were hopeful that it would have an entry for dedicated teams, because evidence shows that they are more likely to get better engagement with victims and, indeed, to follow that through into a prosecution. We are absolutely advocating that.
In the absence of that concrete direction, what we have done as a programme is look at how all the 43 forces deal with modern slavery crimes. Although as a programme we cannot direct, we have shared the learning about where it makes the difference, in terms of lessons learned and good practice.
ACC Jim Pearce: That training is sometimes just about awareness: what are the signs and symbols of modern slavery? It is to make sure that a police officer who is out on the ground does not ignore or misunderstand things. Through training, every new police officer receives a training package lasting a minimum of four hours to give them that awareness. The College of Policing also has a robust guide—what it calls an APP. That is its professional guidance, in effect. It is in existence and is available to all police officers. Of course, all police forces will have guidance and specialists who sit within them.
We do our best, really, by sharing it among the wider piece, as well as by having specialists who sit there, supported by the network of investigators. The detective inspectors sit within the regional crime unit. They work very closely with the programme, supervised by us. They are brilliant people who really understand this business and can help to guide and advise.
Q39 Lord Kempsell: If you had greater resource, which I understand is an imaginative scenario, how would you direct it better nationally to tackle crimes of modern slavery, to the extent that you are able to? Are you able to give us a number of priority areas where police forces really feel that they need more support to tackle this crime?
ACC Jim Pearce: We can go away and think about this and reply to you more formally, but there are probably three key areas we would like to put resourcing into. The first is prevention and the identification of hidden harm. Clearly, I would much rather be proactive and stop this happening than have to pick up a scenario where we have victims and are reactive and investigating. We need work on that prevention piece.
We also need resources around children and young people. The county lines concept criminal exploitation takes up over 50% of the national referral mechanism. There is something to be done there about demand and perhaps tackling that in a slightly different way. I am not entirely clear about how we can do that, because if it were that easy we would probably be doing it, but there is something about understanding the way in which we are tackling issues of criminal exploitation, as compared with high-risk, high-harm issues that sit elsewhere—labour, sexual exploitation and so on—so that we can manage that demand in some shape or form.
We have touched on the third area, which is ensuring that our staff have the tools to be able to do this properly. This is the whole piece around financial investigation and understanding and the use of risk orders and prevention orders to stop those who have offended from reoffending or to put in something that is robust to ensure that people who are on the verge of it or who we think are doing it, although we do not have enough evidence, are stopped from doing it. We know that in other thematics that is successful.
Q40 Lord Kempsell: Let us come on to the orders. How confident are you that investigators are familiar with the considerable powers contained within these orders? For example, a slavery and trafficking prevention order can be used to prohibit foreign travel and to place a large number of restrictions on offenders. The details are in Sections 14 to 29 of the Act. How confident are you that operational police officers are familiar with the powers that are available to courts? I understand, of course, that it is the province of the courts to impose these orders, but how familiar are officers with their existence?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: That will differ, definitely. We have talked about forces that have dedicated modern slavery investigation teams or dedicated exploitation teams, so investigations will be dealt with by specialists. That is not the case in all forces. We as a programme try to fill that gap where we can. We have provided strong guidance to forces on how they can apply for orders, what they mean and what conditions they can get from the courts.
There are not huge numbers in place nationally—about 360-plus. We are doing some work with academic partners to understand their effectiveness. Again, we will try to share that knowledge and experience with forces.
Lord Kempsell: Would you agree that one way in which they can be effective is by being imposed on offenders who are also convicted of associated crime? Although, as you have rightly said, the hidden harms of modern slavery offences are often concealed until they are investigated, there are associated offences that are very obvious: drug dealing in public, the impact of county lines on communities, violence offences and so on. I think I am right in saying that often those who are convicted of modern slavery offences are found also to have committed these associated offences. Could the orders be better used, as they have been by some forces, to tackle a wider range of crime that is not necessarily presented as a modern slavery offence at first instance?
ACC Jim Pearce: I would be interested in exploring that further. Another place to take that would be where you have a scenario that is a modern slavery investigation but through the criminal justice process there is a plea to a different type of offence, which is accepted. It may well be appropriate at that point for an order to be a condition of that plea. I do not know how easy that would be to generate, but you would certainly put a degree of prevention in there. It would be recognition that somebody has been involved in wider exploitation, although they have taken a plea for a different area. That is really interesting.
Lord Kempsell: Earlier you mentioned some of the provisions that were recommended for improvement of the use of the regime of STROs and STPOs: that they should be available to courts on acquittal, and that the requirement for orders to be applied for by force areas solely for offenders in their force area should be removed. It would be interesting for the committee to look at those in more detail. I know that earlier you committed to write to us on them. Is there anything else that you think should be recommended to improve the regime of these orders as regards their application by the police?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: There is the opportunity to have electronic monitoring of the conditions. The other area that we recommended previously was notification requirements to police forces so that the local force knows that that order is in place. Currently, it is recorded on the police national database. If you encountered an individual you would know that there was an order, but you would not know that if you were not in front of them. Proactively, it would be valuable to have that information.
Lord Kempsell: Given the strength of the powers contained in the Act when it comes to these orders, it seems obvious to me that doing more to improve their use across the whole criminal justice system would lead to better outcomes, not just for victims but for the community as a whole.
ACC Jim Pearce: I would not disagree with that statement. We encourage the use and application of orders. As you have already said, we are reliant on the courts to issue them. That is something we can work with in the CPS group and the wider criminal justice group. Anecdotally, there are stories that show that they are effective, but we have no real, solid evidence base at this moment to do that. As we have said, we are working with academia in order to generate that. That organisational learning and best practice may fuel the position so that orders are used more, particularly if we are able to finesse some of the things we have spoken about.
Q41 Lord Kempsell: My final question on that is: in what form will you evaluate the regime of these orders? Will there be an academic review, or will the police lead that? What is the form of checking how orders are being applied for consistently and so on?
ACC Jim Pearce: We are in a better position now when it comes to understanding where the orders are across the country and how many exist. That information comes to us on a regular basis. We are now just moving into the position where we can understand the impact of those orders. Primarily, that is by working with academic partners. I am aware of at least one study that involves Exeter University, which is developing a thesis on this in order to understand exactly what issues are being raised. We will continue with that and, obviously, look to do more.
The Chair: You have stimulated a lot of questions.
ACC Jim Pearce: I have.
Q42 Lord Watson of Invergowrie: I have one factual question, for either of you. How many staff do you have in the modern slavery and organised immigration crime unit?
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: In the modern slavery aspect of that, we have approximately 22 staff. That includes the regional co-ordinators I referenced earlier. They sit within the nine regional organised crime units. Then we have a bank of policy and training experts who provide advice and reports to the Home Office and partners on the implications of legislation and policy for policing. They produce the national investigation guides I spoke about and regular bulletins on case law and updates that we feel forces should know. As a programme, we have a monthly circulation to all forces that includes that information. We then assess forces against the benchmarking standards that I mentioned earlier. That is to name but a few of the functions.
Q43 Lord Watts: Can I take you back very briefly to Lord Randall’s question? The problem with convictions and prosecutions is that often you are at a fairly low level. Do you try to break the cycle by trying to identify, for want of a better word, Mr Big? Do you use the seizure of assets legislation to try to break that cycle?
ACC Jim Pearce: The answer to both of those questions is yes. When it comes to seizure of assets, financial investigators are great for developing investigations and evidence and building a case. They are also fantastic about claiming assets at the end of the case and putting those requests into court.
When it comes to identifying suspects who are operating in the organised crime space, we work very hard through our intelligence networks, along with our National Crime Agency and wider services, to understand that threat picture and who is involved. What we find with modern slavery is that, often, cases are of a smaller nature and organised crime does not sit behind it. I have given you a couple of examples today. One was and one was not. We see that replicated in many ways. It is why the vast majority of these investigations sit at the local policing level, as opposed to the other half of our work, which is on organised immigration crime. That tends to sit more in the National Crime Agency space.
Lord Watts: So that I understand it, what is the value of the assets that have been seized?
ACC Jim Pearce: I do not have that information to hand.
Lord Watts: If you could provide it to us, it would be interesting to know whether, if you increase—
Temporary Chief Superintendent Tamasine Matthews: There are some statistics on the Proceeds of Crime Act, but I would want to check those and provide them for you. Of course, there are provisions within the Modern Slavery Act for seizure of assets and making reparations. Those have been used.
The Chair: Sadly, we have to suspend proceedings now. I thank our witnesses very much indeed. You have promised us some follow-up notes. We will follow up with you on that.
