Annex 16: POTENTIAL USE OF TRAFFIC DATA BY LOCAL
AUTHORITIES (9.83 above)
1.
The information in this Annex derives from evidence to the Review from Hampshire
County Council officers, March 2015.
Cold calling fraud
2.
In April 2012 Mr V was arrested at a house where a consumer had been defrauded of
a considerable amount of money. Other persons ran away and could not be identified.
3.
From itemised billing checks on Mr V’s telephone number, it was established that Mr V
had been in regular contact with a Mr A. Itemised billing for Mr A’s phone number
showed a pattern of contacts with Mr V.
4.
Some time later Mr A was arrested, but on interview he denied being present at the
address and he claimed that someone else had asked him to cash a cheque that had
been written by the consumer. Nothing could be proved to the contrary.
5.
Only Mr V was able to be prosecuted for the fraud offences and he was eventually
given a suspended sentence of 15 months imprisonment plus community service. He
was also given a 7 year Criminal Anti Social Behaviour Order [CRASBO] banning him
from being involved in cold calling anywhere in England and Wales.
6.
All that could be proved against Mr A was a money laundering offence and he was just
given a sentence of 140 hours community service. The local authority was unable to
apply for a CRASBO against him, as they could not place him at the scene.
7.
Had the local authority been able to access traffic data they would have checked
location data for Mr A’s phone, which would have been likely to show he had been in
the vicinity at the consumer’s house at the time of the offences. If this had been
established this would have enabled them to prosecute him for the fraud offence and
quite possibly to have used a conspiracy charge involving both men. If there had been
a successful fraud prosecution, this would have resulted in a CRASBO being obtained
against Mr. A. The CRASBO would have protected vulnerable consumers in general,
since he would be liable to arrest if he was caught cold calling anywhere, even if no
fraud was provable.
Counterfeit goods
8.
In a number of cases, a local authority has seized counterfeit goods from persons who
are selling them locally, but appear to be obtaining them from other persons further up
the distribution chain. The defendants have claimed not to know the name or phone
number of their supplier, because he just rings them when he is about to deliver more
stock. Consequently the local authority is usually only able to prosecute the person
from whom the items were seized. If they were able to access traffic data they could
use this to obtain incoming calls data for the defendant’s phone to try to identify the
supplier. This would otherwise not be possible as the defendant was not making phone
calls to the supplier. Rather than just prosecuting the persons at the bottom of the
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