We have now held three Join the Fight Conferences. Each event was funded predominantly from Proceeds of Crime. The Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is a very powerful tool used to disrupt crime.
Using criminal confiscation powers, the Act allows the enforcement authorities to track down and recover the profits of crime from individuals deemed to have benefited from a criminal lifestyle.
It aims to strike directly at:
- the main motive for crime
- deterring offenders
- disrupting organised crime
- showing the public that crime doesn’t pay
This means that money which has been recovered through the sale of criminals’ assets and directly from criminal investigations undertaken by Suffolk Trading Standards can be put back into community projects aimed at tackling rogue trader activity.
At the conferences, partners from around the county were invited to gain knowledge relating to scams, and the impact they have on communities. We also invite scholars who work within the scams environment to deliver insight from their research.
In 2019 our key note speaker was Dr Elizabeth Carter, Senior Lecturer from Roehampton University. In 2016 Professor Keith Brown from Bournemouth University joined us and in 2015 Marilyn Baldwin OBE highlighted the mind-set of victims and the frustration and helplessness faced by the relatives of "silent" victims of fraud.
View pictures from the conferences on our corporate Flickr page.
Conference organiser
To enquire about attending, exhibiting or speaking at a future event, please email us on tradingstandards@suffolk.gov.uk.
