Log In
Log In
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
Eight tutorials on forensic accounting — the discipline of investigating financial irregularities, quantifying their consequences, and presenting findings in legal proceedings. Sharpley Simulacrum leads — a former Metropolitan Police fraud-squad detective inspector who retrained as a chartered accountant and now runs a forensic practice. The course covers the fraud triangle and red-flag analysis, investigation methodology and asset tracing, quantification of loss, money laundering and financial crime, the expert witness role under the Civil Procedure Rules, working with police and SFO investigations, and report-writing and giving evidence in court. Stage 3 of the Accounting & Finance (UK) programme.
Courses are available to holders of a paid pass or membership. See passes & membership →
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
An introduction to forensic accounting — what it is, how it differs from audit and police work, and the engagement types that structure the discipline. Sharpley Simulacrum covers the five engagement contexts (internal investigation, civil litigation, criminal prosecution, insolvency support, regulatory), the legal-privilege framework around investigative work, the ACFE fraud taxonomy, the fraud triangle (Cressey 1953) and fraud diamond (Wolfe and Hermanson 2004), and the empirical baseline of fraud detection from the ACFE Report to the Nations.
Outcome
The student can articulate the forensic accountant's role and how it differs from audit and police work; can identify the appropriate engagement type for a stated factual scenario; and can frame an engagement letter for a hypothetical investigation. (Forensic accounting foundations)
Practice scenarios
You frame the engagement letter and 7-day work plan for an internal investigation into £180k of unusual reimbursement patterns on a regional director's expense account at a UK-listed retail group. The work tests whether you can structure scoping, conflict checks, fee terms, legal-privilege framing, and an initial work plan defensible to the general counsel under timeline pressure.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Fraud red flags and the analytical techniques that surface them. The module covers the four-layer red-flag framework (transaction profile, counterparty profile, temporal pattern, statistical pattern), Benford's Law as a leading-digit anomaly test, the typical red-flag patterns by scheme type (expense fraud, billing fraud, payroll fraud, financial-statement fraud), modern data-analytics tools (IDEA, ACL, Power BI, Python pandas), and the integration with whistleblowing infrastructure as the single most consequential anti-fraud control.
Outcome
The student can identify the fraud-triangle conditions in a described scenario; can apply Benford's Law to a dataset of transactions and interpret the chi-square result; and can structure a red-flag analysis plan for a typical forensic engagement. (Fraud red flags and analytics)
Practice scenarios
You analyse a year of procurement transactions from a UK retail group's procurement subsidiary using Benford's Law and identify a leading-digit pattern consistent with threshold-avoidance kickback arrangements. The work tests whether you can interpret the chi-square result, recommend the next supplier-concentration analytical step, and resist a defensive head-of-procurement's challenge that *Benford is just one statistical test*.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Investigation methodology — the structured discipline of evidence preservation, document review, and interview technique. The module covers the seven steps of a forensic investigation (scoping, evidence preservation, data extraction, document review, interviews, hypothesis testing, report), modern eDiscovery and technology-assisted review, the PEACE interview model used by UK police and forensic interviewers, the contemporaneous-documentation discipline, and the chain-of-custody preservation that protects evidence for later legal proceedings.
Outcome
The student can plan an investigation methodology including evidence preservation, document review, and interviews; can apply the PEACE model to a witness or subject interview; and can articulate the chain-of-custody and contemporaneous-documentation discipline. (Investigation methodology)
Practice scenarios
You plan and conduct the formal interview with a regional director suspected of operating a kickback scheme through three suppliers connected to his wife's brother. The work tests whether you can apply the PEACE model under realistic conditions — building from agreed facts to challenge, presenting evidence at the right moment, recording responses contemporaneously, and pausing the interview when the subject requests his own solicitor.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Quantification of loss — the central technical work of most forensic engagements. The module covers the major quantification frameworks (direct loss, lost profits, diminution in value, restitution, reasonable royalty), the *but-for* counterfactual construction for lost-profits work, the role of contemporary forecasts and industry data as evidence, the discounting of future losses to present value, the mitigation analysis required by law, and sensitivity analysis as the standard practice. The worked example builds a five-year lost-profits quantification for a distribution-agreement breach.
Outcome
The student can build a lost-profits quantification using the but-for counterfactual approach; can apply discounting to future losses; can perform sensitivity analysis on the key inputs; and can articulate the difference between direct loss, lost profits, diminution, and reasonable royalty. (Quantification of loss)
Practice scenarios
You quantify lost profits over five years for a UK distributor whose £8.2m-revenue exclusive distribution agreement was terminated in breach, including a but-for revenue projection, mitigation analysis on substitute product lines, and sensitivity analysis on growth and contract-term assumptions. The work tests whether you can build a defensible quantum number under challenge from the defendant's expert.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Money laundering and the UK financial-crime framework. The module covers the three-stage canonical model (placement, layering, integration), the typology (cash-business, trade-based, real-estate, shell-company, crypto, professional-services laundering), the principal UK statutes (POCA 2002, MLR 2017, Criminal Finances Act 2017), the FCA's expectations of regulated firms, the SAR regime and the DAML defence, the post-Russia-sanctions expansion of the financial-crime perimeter, and the forensic role across compliance review, SAR investigation, regulatory enforcement support, and POCA proceedings.
Outcome
The student can articulate the three stages of money laundering and the UK regulatory framework; can identify the customer-due-diligence obligations of a regulated firm under MLR 2017; and can structure a forensic AML investigation in response to a SAR or regulatory inquiry. (Money laundering and financial crime)
Practice scenarios
You investigate a suspicious-transaction pattern at a UK retail bank — £4.2m in 11 wire transfers from Latvian banks to a UK property-investment company with Russian-Belarusian beneficial owners, used for cash purchases of London residential property. The work tests whether you can apply the placement-layering-integration model, recommend immediate SAR and DAML actions, and defend the investigation against a relationship-manager's pressure to *trust the introducer*.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
The expert witness role under the Civil Procedure Rules Part 35 — the procedural framework within which most forensic accountants operate in UK civil litigation. The module covers the expert's overriding duty to the court (rule 35.3), the report content requirements (Practice Direction 35), the truth statement and expert's declaration, the engagement workflow from instruction through to court attendance, the experts' meeting and joint statement procedure under rule 35.12, and the discipline of resisting instructing-solicitor pressure to strengthen conclusions beyond what the data supports.
Outcome
The student can structure a CPR Part 35-compliant expert report including the truth statement and expert's declaration; can articulate the expert's overriding duty to the court and how to manage solicitor pressure; and can identify the components of the experts' meeting and joint statement procedure. (Civil litigation support)
Practice scenarios
You draft an expert report under CPR Part 35 on lost profits for the distribution-agreement case from Module 4, structured for service in the High Court Commercial Court. The work tests whether you can produce a report that survives the experts' meeting, the joint statement, and cross-examination, while resisting an instructing solicitor's predictable pressure for a higher headline number.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Forensic work in criminal investigations and the UK criminal-justice architecture. The module covers the institutional framework (police economic-crime units, the Serious Fraud Office, HMRC Fraud Investigation Service, FCA enforcement, the National Crime Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service), the procedural rules (PACE 1984, the Criminal Procedure Rules, the CPIA disclosure regime), the substantive offences (Fraud Act 2006, Bribery Act 2010), the Deferred Prosecution Agreement framework, and confiscation orders under POCA. The closing scenario supports an SFO procurement-fraud investigation.
Outcome
The student can articulate the UK criminal-investigation architecture; can identify which agency leads which case type; can identify the differences between civil and criminal expert work; and can frame an expert engagement supporting a criminal prosecution. (Criminal investigation forensic work)
Practice scenarios
You support an SFO investigation into £4m of procurement-director kickbacks at a UK government-services contractor, planning the analytical work across full-population contract review, supplier-margin analysis, bank-statement analysis, and chronology building. The work tests whether you can frame the work plan defensibly to an SFO investigator pressing for an accelerated timeline and definitive findings before the analysis supports them.
Your goals
Led by Felix Aubrey Sharpley Simulacrum
The question
Reporting and giving evidence in court — the deliverable that completes most forensic engagements. The module covers the report structure (executive summary, introduction, background, methodology, findings, opinion, limitations, appendices), clear writing for a legal audience, cross-examination preparation, demeanour in the witness box, the common cross-examination tactics and how to respond, and the discipline of credibility — built by the report's quality, reinforced or undermined by the witness-box performance, lost by overreaching. Concurrent evidence (hot-tubbing) closes the course.
Outcome
The student can structure a forensic report with appropriate sections; can prepare for cross-examination on a specific opinion; and can articulate the discipline of credible expert testimony — including the willingness to concede defensible points and to maintain core opinions under pressure. (Reporting and giving evidence)
Practice scenarios
You prepare for cross-examination on the distribution-agreement case — your central £8.7m loss number under attack on three lines (growth assumption, period of loss, substitute mitigation). The work tests whether you can hold defensible positions under hostile counsel's pressure, concede defensible points on the sensitivity range, and resist the *yes-or-no* trap without losing the central estimate.
Your goals