Author: Peter Tickner
ISBN No: 978-0-470-6818
Review date: 03/05/2024
No of pages: 416
Publisher: Wiley
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
When Mike Comer says you are legendary (as he does on the inside cover of Peter Tickner’s book), you are. From the March 2011 print issue of Professional Security magazine.
Lord Toby Harris of the Metropolitan Police Authority describes Peter Tickner as ‘a robust and tenacious chief internal auditor’ and an ‘attack dog’. Also, though, Tickner has a wry sense of humour. He begins his first book, How to be a successful frauditor (a auditor and investigator, that is), with stories of his early years as a starter in NHS audit. He learnt ‘that there was a lot of fraud going on out there and most of the bosses I worked for either couldn’t see it or our lords and masters were less keen to pursue it than we were’. Where does this book stand in the ever more crowded field of UK studies of fraud? Right up there with Mike Comer’s Corporate Fraud, which Tickner describes as ‘seminal’. The two are, naturally, different: Comer writes of a pet dog, Tickner has a tabby cat. So just as you may prefer the company of cats or dogs, you will lean to Comer’s or Tickner’s books as go-to guides for fraud investigation, and simply a good read about workplaces and human nature. The two men’s careers reflect their differences: Comer has been in the corporate world, Tickner public service. As Tickner rather coyly puts it, in the commercial world a fraud investigator can be ‘enterprising’, and ‘proactive’, even baiting and entrapping a suspect in ways that might backfire in the public sector. Any ex-Met Police readers may want to use the index and turn straight to the pages on ‘corporate credit cards for cops – the system that should never have been’ and the ‘vehicle maintenance contract fraud’ among other contractor stories. Younger readers may have to ask for an explanation of the ‘great carbon copier paper fraud of the 1970s’. To sum up, Tickner has delivered an enjoyable and informative book that reflects how he enjoyed his investigations: “There were always frustrating days and pressurised times,” he concludes, “especially when I found anything that made top management uncomfortable, but ultimately nothing I can think of in the work environment is as satisfying as a fraud investigation that you have brought to a successful outcome.” He has told me he is writing a follow-up book, and no wonder.
About Peter Tickner: Began as a teenage external auditor in the National Health Service in the 1970s; then headed internal audit at the Treasury then the Met Police. He took early retirement in 2009 to set up his own investigative and audit business.
