Dateline 9th August 2013, and the government is under attack for only having brought to justice two of a large number of criminals who have defrauded tax payers of millions of pounds. Most of the offenders  have absconded overseas, and the likelihood of them now being apprehended is infinitesimally small.

Could the government have done more? Well, the BBC published a list of some key offenders, and there was one common characteristic of them all; that was that they all had been arrested and charged, but then failed to appear in court, having been granted bail. All bar one were either foreign nationals or had probable significant overseas connections.

They include a Chinese man who had defrauded the tax payer of  £2.5m. That is a significant major crime committed by someone who might reasonably considered to be a flight risk – so why the bail?

Is this lack or prison space (down to Theresa May) or fear of European pinko Human Rights legislation?

So, Mrs May, a simple solution to limit these multi-million pound losses to the tax payer is to not grant bail to those accused of significant fraud when it might be reasonably concluded they have a material risk of absconding.

[Let’s think this through; the fraudster or alleged fraudster has maybe millions of pounds secreted away, and has a simple choice; stay, be jailed and probably lose the ill-gotten gains, or flee. Does the judge really think they will do the right thing and appear in court for option one? Utterly unbelievable.]

There is always potential for holding someone who is innocent (but shorter time to trial would mitigate that somewhat) but in these cases the courts seem to have got the granting of bail wrong in every single case. Think again, Mrs May.