The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has secured its first Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO), as it seeks to recover a Lake District property believed to have been purchased with the proceeds of a £100m fraud.
The property is valued at around £1.5m and is owned by Claire Schools, the ex-wife of the convicted solicitor Timothy Schools, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2022.
The order was successfully secured at the High Court on 17 January today to freeze the property to ensure that, if sold, the proceeds are secured. Ms Schools has also been ordered to produce information about how the property was obtained within 28 days. The SFO may use this information to bring a case to seize the house at a later date.
This order follows the confiscation of a further £1m from Schools in a hearing at Southwark Crown Court earlier this month.
A UWO is an investigative tool used to determine the source of funding for an asset, where there is reasonable suspicion that it was acquired with the proceeds of crime. If the recipient fails to prove that the asset was acquired legitimately, the SFO may apply to seize it at the High Court.
This is the first UWO used by the SFO since they were introduced by parliament in 2017. The SFO is the second law enforcement authority to ever use the tool.
Nick Ephgrave QPM, Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said: “This is a milestone case for the SFO and follows on from last week’s successful £1 million recovery to go back to the victims in this case.
“Wherever criminal assets have been hidden or dispersed, we will progress our investigations with determination and explore new methods to recover funds for victims and the public purse.”
In a separate response in reaction to the case, Andrew Smith, partner at Corker Binning, said: “Unexplained wealth orders have been available since January 2018. The real questions are therefore why it has taken seven years for the SFO to secure one, and whether this is the beginning of a regular pattern.”
