‘A bit of a challenge’ The ex-cop leading stretched SFO to take on big-money fraud

Nick Ephgrave has the air of a copper under siege. A former Metropolitan police officer who once pounded the pavements of south London, the ninth director of the Serious Fraud Office can be forgiven for feeling claustrophobic.

- Anna Isaac

The SFO's offices in Cockspur Street, overlooking the tourist-thronged Trafalgar Square and its barrage of buskers, are a far cry from the glass and steel offices of the firms it takes on.

Even to enter Ephgrave's attic room he must first go through the security of the Canadian high commission. Shabby carpet, struggling house plants and chipped mugs give an impression that is more Slough House the in TV drama Slow Horses than the UK's premier anti-fraud squad. At least he has a view - some of its staff work in its basements, taking vitamin D tablets to compensate for the lack of natural light.

Running the SFO is one of the highest pressure jobs in law enforcement. While he says the organisation welcomed him, Ephgrave also has to battle preconceived notions of who ought to be running the SFO - given the role is often done by someone with a legal background.

"Clearly, I'm not a lawyer," he says. "One of the things I think I bring, which I think my predecessors maybe hadn't, was experience of progressing investigations in all sorts of different ways. Introducing new tactics, new methodologies."

Ephgrave says he faced resistance, a sense of: "Who is this fella that's come in from policing into this rather specialist world?" People were worried that this lack of legal experience might impact the "quality of decision-making". "Getting over that hump was a bit of a challenge, initially."

Ephgrave may face more such challenges in the future, given his surprising admission that the SFO has granted complete immunity from prosecution to an individual after their assistance in apprehending other offenders.