Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
Personal injury occurs when you get injured as a result of the neglect of another party. This means that the accident could have been avoided if the situation or circumstances were handled more carefully. You have every right to contact a personal injury lawyer when faced with such a situation.
Check out some instances or situations where it makes sense to contact a personal injury lawyer.
Your workspace should be a safe place for you to carry out your tasks and responsibilities. If you get injured while on the job, you can contact a personal injury lawyer to help protect your rights and interest. Workplace injury can include: injuries caused by faulty work equipment, dangerous working sites without markings and warnings, and getting injured by operating equipment when you didn’t receive any training.
If you experience any sort of workplace injury, you should observe the following procedures:
Keep in mind that different workspaces have various guidelines regarding injury procedures. Make sure to get acquainted with these procedures if you become injured. Once you get medical clearance, you should visit a personal injury lawyer who will take the case forward.
Your workspace should be a safe place for you to carry out your tasks and responsibilities.
When you’re a victim of negligent driving and suffer injuries as a result, you should contact a car accident lawyer. You may have been the other driver, or a pedestrian, or in a car with a person who was driving negligently. The fact that you were placed in a compromising position that jeopardised your health and safety means that you may receive compensation.
To increase your chances of getting compensated, you need to observe the following process right after you’re involved in an accident:
Once you have followed the recommended procedures, you must seek medical guidance. Your doctor should give you a report that you need to present to your lawyer as evidence of your injuries that have been attended to as a result of the accident. Once you’ve been medically cleared, you must head to your injury lawyer who’s trained to lead your case to a successful outcome.
If you’re in a grocery store for example, and you slip and fell on a wet floor and get injured, you can file for compensation. It needs to be proven that there wasn’t a caution sign or the area wasn’t marked off. This also applies in scenarios such as poorly maintained roads that caused the fall that led to your injury.
Suffering from a dog bite is very dangerous. This is why dog owners are supposed to have their dogs on a leash whenever they’re off their private property. If you’re walking down the street, or hanging out at a park, you’re supposed to be confident that all dogs you encounter are on leash. It’s the dog owner’s responsibility to prevent their dogs from harming other people. If you get bitten by a dog that wasn’t on a leash or wasn’t being restrained by the owner, you can contact a personal injury lawyer.
You can contact a personal injury lawyer if you believe that a loved one passed away as a result of wrongful death. This may have been as a result of a car accident, or workplace injury for example. Depending on the unique situation, a lawyer will advise you about the documentation required to file your claim.
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Hiring a personal injury lawyer has many advantages compared to fighting a legal battle on your own.
Below are some of the reasons why you should hire a personal injury lawyer:
There are different situations that you can file for a personal injury lawsuit. These include a car accident, workplace injury, slip and fall, as well as a wrongful death. A lawyer has the expertise required to see your case through. Hiring a lawyer increases your chances of getting compensated for your injuries.
Nobody wants to find themselves a victim of a very unfortunate situation, such as an accident, that can cause physical, mental, emotional, and financial injuries. However, accidents do happen, and even with extra precaution, there are instances wherein these cannot be avoided. In this case, below are some of the things you can do if you’re a victim of an accident.
One of the first things that you need to do when you find yourself a victim of an accident is to check your injuries. Make sure that even if your injuries are minor, you still seek medical treatment because you will need your medical records later on. If there are other people involved in the accident, check whether they have incurred injuries as well.
After getting the proper medical treatment, the next thing that you need to do is to report the incident to the proper authorities. In case you are involved in a car accident, make sure to call the police. Rest assured that they will be on the scene in no time to investigate what happened, collect important evidence, as well as to file a report. On the other hand, if you get involved in a slip and fall accident, make sure to let the manager, landlord, or owner of the establishment know what happened and secure a copy of the report.
Once you have already reported the incident to the proper authorities, the next thing that you should do is to get in touch with your insurance provider. Make sure to do this as soon as possible and provide as much information as you can about the accident that happened. In parallel to this, you can also seek the advice of a personal injury lawyer for you to have a good idea of the other things that you need to do or prepare to ensure that you will be able to maximise your claim. After all, the money that you get in the end will prove to be beneficial in helping you get back to your feet.
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Make sure to gather sufficient evidence about the accident that happened because this will strengthen your claim later on. In this case, it is a good idea to take pictures of the scene as you deem necessary. Also, compile your records, which includes the records of your medical treatment, as well as the reports from the police or owner of the establishment. Add to this the photos that you have taken and present all these when you file your claim.
To wrap things up, when you find yourself a victim of an accident, make sure to check your injuries and seek treatment as necessary. Also, make sure to report the incident to the proper authorities and get in touch with your insurance provider. From them, continue gathering evidence and documenting everything that may help you with your claim later on. All these are geared towards ensuring that alongside your healing, you also get the proper compensation that you deserve.
We speak to Chris Collier, a Senior Digital Forensics Analyst, who reveals more about the process of digital forensics and how his findings can benefit legal cases.
How has digital forensics developed over the years and what importance does it play in legal cases now, in comparison to a decade ago, when the digital world was a lot different?
From a mobile device perspective, the last ten years have brought massive changes in the world of digital forensics. Phones have drastically changed over this time, especially with the introduction and growth of smartphones (the original iPhone was released in 2007). At the beginning of this period, phones were generally built for storing limited contact data (primarily a short name and a number), making calls and sending/receiving SMS – with limited storage volumes. Current smartphones are now capable of storing vast amounts of data, from contacts, calls and messages (which covers standard SMS to application messages, multimedia messages, emails), to media files such as music, images and documents. With handsets capable of 512GB storage data and an additional 1024GB expansion with memory cards - a potential 1.5TB of storage. A vast array of free and paid-for applications now allow users to communicate away from standard networks, send encrypted data and automatically destruct messages/images. Apps also interact with on-device cameras/video recorders and GPS locators to provide organisers, navigation tools, file sharing tools, IoT (Internet of Things) controllers, document processing, health application data etc.
Additional security features on the handsets such as PIN, Passwords and data encryption (handset and application-specific) greatly affect the ability to recover data from handsets.
The volume and type of data have increased the importance of information recovered from digital devices from ancillary data to key evidence. Examples of this can be: GPS data recovered from handsets putting suspects at the scene of a crime; communication data discussing a crime to be committed, or a crime after it has been performed; documents relating to fraud; illegal image files stored on the handset or additional storage; health application data showing the activity of a user when the crime was being committed, including heartrate/physical exertion.
Data is now split across storage on physical devices and data stored on the cloud. With applications caching data on devices and full data stored on the application creators’ servers, such as Facebook Messenger, Dropbox etc., new techniques have had to be developed to recover data directly from separate servers to combine with the data recovered directly from the handset.
Additional security features on the handsets such as PIN, Passwords and data encryption (handset and application-specific) greatly affect the ability to recover data from handsets.
Forensic methods have also changed over this period such as: connection techniques such as infra-red and multi-pin cables; ever-faster USBs, Bluetooth extractions and the development of advanced techniques - such as, Chip Removal (where the memory chip is removed from the device and data is read directly from it), ISP (In-System Programming, where connections are soldered directly to the board, allowing communication direct to the chip); password bypass tools and decryption techniques; and, changes in the way data is stored on the handset with an increasing reliance on SQLite database storage for applications. The volume and complexity of recovered data have also changed which has led to more time being spent on examination and analysis.
Once a device has been pre-imaged, we move onto the Extraction/Analysis stage.
What are the steps in digital forensics?
The first key step is seizure of devices. With mobile phones it is important to stop the connection to the network – this can be done as simply as turning the handset off – because, with an active network connection, it is possible to remotely wipe data on a handset. This is generally performed by our clients, however, MD5 can perform onsite collections to securely recover exhibits. Once exhibits have been seized, they are brought to the MD5 lab for analysis.
Handsets will initially be pre-imaged at MD5; this allows us to perform an initial assessment of the device. This is performed in the MD5 shielding unit, a secure room that blocks all network connections. Here, we check devices for PIN/Passwords, record the handset’s date and time against the atomic clock, check for further handset information, such as specific model variant and operating system, and further disable the option to connect to a network.
Once a device has been pre-imaged, we move onto the Extraction/Analysis stage. Initial attempts will be made to extract a physical image of the device using non-destructive forensic methods. If this fails, advanced techniques are then reviewed and further assessments of the device are made, whereby we will determine what advanced techniques are viable and consult the client on which route they would like us to take.
Once all data has been recovered, the analyst will review the data and identify what is relevant to the given case remit. This can be searching for given user contacts, looking for specific files, reviewing a timeline of data for events or further complex work. Once this has been completed, the analyst will prepare a report on their findings.
Once completed, the report and exhibits are passed onto the client, with the analyst on hand if further explanations are required.
The volume of data can vary between applications or handset make, model and OS (Operating System).
How do you piece together the digital ‘chain of events’?
Data is reviewed together with a remit from the client. More information provided in the remit allows the analyst a better understanding of the case and requirements. The analyst will then manually review the data against the client remit looking for information relating to the case.
This can be looking for specific data, i.e., contacts with a specific person or looking for specific files. It could be a more complex review of data: reviewing a timeline of data to build a picture of events and interpret this into something more accessible, attempting to determine where data has come from or how it has appeared on the device.
How much can you actually recover when undergoing a legal investigation?
The volume of data can vary between applications or handset make, model and OS (Operating System). Effectively, all live data is recoverable, either through forensic tools, advanced methods or, as a last resort, manual data capture. Deleted data can vary on an application, OS, make and model basis – this can also be further affected by the presence and type of handset encryption.
Generic web browsing is normally completed in applications such as “Chrome”, “Safari”, “Samsung Internet”. From these, we are able to recover varying sets of data, depending on the application or handset make/model/OS.
Application data can vary depending on what the application chooses to cache (store in the application's memory). Applications such as Facebook Messenger do not store full message communications on the handset – full messages are stored on the Facebook servers with a selection of messages cached to the handset memory. The application will temporarily store a copy, to speed up retrieval the next time the user wants to access the same data from the internet. This is largely done to save space on the handset, improve performance, and allow the data to be accessed by a wide range of devices.
What evidence can be obtained from web browsing and social media and how can this change the course of a legal case?
Applications generally separate web browsing and social media data on mobile devices, with dedicated applications for each social network.
Generic web browsing is normally completed in applications such as “Chrome”, “Safari”, “Samsung Internet”. From these, we are able to recover varying sets of data, depending on the application or handset make/model/OS. This can include Web history and bookmarks, Web searches and autofill data, Cookie data, password and account information. It is also possible to recover cached images and web pages from some devices. This can be very relevant in many cases. The data may relate to: accessing/downloading illegal files; searches relating to locations/places prior to the suspect being there; often criminals search for answers on the internet in relation to commenting/covering up crimes which can be important when building a case.
Along with the application data, the user accounts are recovered from the handsets. This allows for easy tracking of evidence.
Social media data can be recovered directly from applications. This can include cached data (such as wall posts and direct messages), user accounts, user activity (in some cases this can include data volumes transmitted to the network), messages data including multimedia, location data. All of which can be used when building a case and viewing a timeline of events, or may even contain the incriminating data vital to a case.
How easy is it to trace evidence back to the accused? What challenges may arise for you?
PIN- and password-locked devices can ease the process of attributing handset data to an owner. Often a locked device will only be accessible to the owner, without access to forensic tools. This gives us a level of certainty with attributing data to a device owner.
Most applications are activated with a user account. Along with the application data, the user accounts are recovered from the handsets. This allows for easy tracking of evidence. Often accounts are set up with a personal email, phone number, user name and contact image.
This can be a challenge if the account has been set up with data to obfuscate using generic names or data not related to the owner, however, the presence of this account on a device allows us to tie the data back to the owner.
Chris Collier
www.md5.uk.com/
My name is Chris COLLIER and I am a Senior Digital Forensics Analyst and the Head of Mobile Device Forensics at MD5 Limited. I have been a digital forensic practitioner since 2007. I first started my career at the Digital Forensic Unit in Humberside police. There, my duties included the collection and investigative analysis of digital devices (including mobile phones, tablets and satellite navigational aids) and the presentation of the data in evidential form suitable for a court of law. During this time, I examined in excess of 6,000 Digital devices. In this role, I gave evidence in courts within the English Legal System and the United States of America.
In March 2017, I moved to MD5 Limited. Here my role involves forensically acquiring data from digital devices (including onsite examinations), analysing and investigating data according to client specifications and clearly and accurately producing written reports where I have to verbally ‘translate’ technical findings to clients and stakeholders. I am also called upon to clearly and accurately present digital evidence in court, including being able to explain my actions taken and support conclusions under cross-examination.
I am also responsible for running the mobile phone forensics team which involves: mentoring, monitoring and development of staff members; leading Research and Development on projects into new working practices to ensure that MD5 Ltd is offering the most appropriate and effective service to meet client requirements; developing Standard Operating Procedures and proactively acquiring knowledge to ensure MD5 is using the most appropriate hardware and software to meet client requirements; overall responsibility for quality assurance checks; providing advice to internal and external stakeholders regarding the feasibility and reliability of forensic analysis in relation to the digital evidence sought.
MD5 LTD is a UK leading provider of Digital Forensic & eDisclosure services to large multi-national corporate businesses, Law Enforcement & Government Agencies and high profile legal firms. Founded in 2003 by a former Head of the Digital Forensics Unit at the National Crime Squad. MD5’s forensic laboratory continues to investigate the business world’s ever-changing digital environment, allowing our experts to discover reliable evidence from the investigation of Computers, Mobile Phones, other Digital Devices and Digital Storage Media, Cloud Data and Internet activity.
The work taken on by MD5 ranges from standard forensic examination and analysis, to bespoke advanced data recovery techniques, or large-scale eDisclosure projects, where a high level of knowledge may be required or where an expert opinion may be required. MD5 have the ability to recover data from a wide range of primary storage devices, interpret complex data and then present the evidence in a clear format to establish legal facts for courts. As a result, this allows us to provide expert Digital Forensic Services tailored to the needs of our clientele.
Digital forensic investigation often identifies a large volume of suspect documents and emails. MD5’s eForensics approach combines our expertise in digital forensics and data analytics with electronic review tools, so our commercial clients can recover evidence from a mountain of data in significantly shorter timescales. MD5’s eDisclosure service provides our clients with proportionate, defensible outcomes for every day as well as complex commercial cases. Our experienced eDisclosure team helps our clients to meet the challenge of the increasing volumes of data stored in computers, mobile phones, and the Cloud.
Driving a six-wheel truck on the road is quite challenging. Any truck accident could result in severe injuries and damages, and only a truck accident lawyer can help make claims. Because of this, a person who is a victim or found at fault in a truck mishap should seek professional help from a lawyer who is well-versed in truck accident cases.
Here are some of the many benefits that hiring a truck accident lawyer can bring.
The best person to represent you in a truck accident case is a lawyer. A truck accident lawyer who has years of experience handling truck accident cases can deal with any insurance provider. As you probably know, insurance companies also have their expert legal team, and they will try to reduce your compensation or even deny your claim in every possible way.
Here's how a truck lawyer can help when dealing with a truck insurance company:
A truck accident lawyer will present all possible evidence to prove the validity and strength of your claim.
In personal injury law, a truck accident is a catastrophic injury case. While you seek medical attention for your injuries and repair for damages caused by a truck accident, a truck accident attorney will handle all the legal technicalities of your case. From gathering the pieces of evidence to filing your claim, a truck accident lawyer will ensure that no legal aspect or requirement is missed out.
For someone who didn't study law or is not familiar with personal injury law, these legal technicalities are hard to understand. That's why handling and submitting a truck accident claim should always be through a truck accident lawyer for your peace of mind.
Here are some legal technicalities of a truck accident case:
While you can always represent yourself and file a claim on your own, any uncertainty down the road should prompt you to hire a truck accident lawyer to pursue your claim. Only a truck accident lawyer, who is experienced in handling truck accident cases, can understand all law-related clauses covered in a truck insurance policy.
A truck accident lawyer will ensure that your legal rights are protected and that you fully understand the nature of the case in simple terms that one can clearly understand. A truck accident doesn't only involve physical injuries, damage to the vehicle, or possible loss of employment or earning capacity, but also linked to emotional trauma and long-term disability.
Here's how a truck accident lawyer can safeguard your legal rights:
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The benefits of hiring a truck accident lawyer include having someone to legally represent you to negotiate with the insurance company or take the matter in court. Of course, an experienced truck accident lawyer can help you understand the due process and all aspects related to your case, including handling all legal technicalities of a truck accident case.
Thus an injured person can have a type of legal claim for personal injury cases for the bodily harm they have incurred due to the negligence of others. To lodge an effective claim and ensure that you get justly compensated, there are several effective ways of investigating, researching and preparing serious injury claims.
Determining fault for an accident can be shown or strengthened by a piece of physical evidence. Thanks to technology, documentation of the accident scene through pictures and videos can provide something that can be seen, as opposed to a verbal description of what happened. Examples can be worn, or broken stair that caused a slip and fall, improperly fitted scaffolding that caused injury from wood and equipment toppling over or a chip or dent in your car showing where the collision is located.
Physical evidence can also help prove the nature of the injury bolster the veracity of its extent. In car accidents, the damage to a car can substantiate the severity of the impact and the corresponding injury received by the car’s driver. Also, torn and bloodied clothing shows physical injuries vividly.
Timeliness is a key factor in documenting physical evidence. Document the accident scene in the first few hours or days after the accident to prevent the evidence from getting lost, altered by weather and nature, destroyed, cleaned or repaired. Preserving these evidences exactly as they were at the time of the accident through picture or video can help your personal injury claim.
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Depending on the severity of the injury, you should return to the scene of the accident as soon as possible to locate any evidence or conditions that you believe may have caused or contributed to the accident and injury. The expert personal injury lawyers at Montgomery Serious Injury Law Group emphasize that a thorough investigation of the accident should be conducted to determine all the parties liable for your injury and losses. If your injury is severe and visiting the accident scene is impossible, you can seek assistance from your lawyer on the evidence collection in your absence. Photographs can be useful when presented as evidence or presenting a claim, as they can give an angle to the accident that can support your claim. Vehicle accident injuries also need strong evidence which can be bolstered by photographical evidence, such as a comparison of the traffic situation on the day of the accident and on the same day of the following week, a possible sign of traffic light failure or absence of early warning device on the road.
Photo by Matt Chesin on Unsplash
Aside from the physical evidence from the scene of the accident, taking photographs or videos of your injuries can help establish the extent of your damages. The key piece of evidence is of course the medical records of your injuries. This, supported by the on-scene documentation of the injuries sustained can build a strong evidence of the extent of your injuries. Also, the type of medical treatment you receive is important, as the defendant in your case will likely request for your medical records. It is therefore critical to see a doctor and follow treatment recommendations such as referrals to other specialists. Gather documentation of your injuries and your medical bills to solidify the basis of your pain and suffering which is a key indicator in the amount of compensation you should demand in your personal injury case.
Dealing with accident-related personal injury can be physically, emotionally and financially taxing. Injuries that cause significant bodily damage and permanent disability can be devastating. Thus, you need to get the most, if not all, of the claims that are due for you. Recovery is a painstaking process, and you need every ounce of help you can get from the damages and losses you incurred. Being in the know about the legal process, and having a reliable legal team to aid you can help you win your serious injury claim battle and get your life back on track.
If you’re already in a bit of a bind, then this rings especially true. Lawyers are completely up to date and trained to help you, their client, see the best possible outcome of a legal situation. Furthermore, if you’ve been accused of a potential crime, it will serve you best to see a specialist: A Criminal Lawyer. Now, a criminal lawyer’s whole job is to prevent you from being seen, in the eyes of the law, as a criminal. The title is a bit of a misnomer in that regard, but whether or not your situation is serious, having one can only help. Here’s why it’s important to have a reliable criminal lawyer.
A giant reason to get a criminal lawyer is that it’s very common for people to get incorrectly charged, especially with the ever-changing state and local laws. This is why it’s important to find a criminal lawyer that knows your district. For example, if you’re somewhere around in North Carolina, you should go for lawyers that will know the most up to date changes in your state. Reputable lawyers from Kurtz & Blum strongly advise people needing legal representation not to look so far, as being thoroughly knowledgeable with local laws can make or break your case. And if someone isn’t there to correct that in a manner that is practiced and perfected, you could find yourself in a situation that doesn’t tilt in your favor. There is a whole host of things you’re trying to prevent by having a criminal lawyer's hand. With one by your side, you can be sure you get the fairest and most reasonable treatment available to you.
A criminal lawyer is an expert in presenting evidence. This is one of the most important professional functions they provide. They can dig through the minutia and find what ally matters in a body of evidence. They can formulate the proper questions to give a witness, and in the best context possible. They’re also fluent in the language used in a court of law. This means that the appropriateness of a line of questioning can be raised and, if need be, countered properly.
The most important function of a criminal lawyer is to keep you out of jail. That’s the bottom line. There’s the exposure angle, there are public interest submissions, there’s the presentation of evidence, all in line with the single focus of helping you avoid imprisonment. Whether you plead innocent or guilty, a criminal lawyer will fight for the best possible outcome. Without them, your chances of facing some unwanted time are greatly increased. In this system, you still have to prove your innocence without the shadow of a doubt. Fortunately, having an expert at your side can do just that.
Availing the services of a criminal lawyer is what separates the successful from the not so fortunate, in the high stakes and high pressure environment of the court. When you decide to invest in a reliable lawyer, what you’re doing is investing in your freedom, your time, and your future livelihood.
The level of understating of forensic science among lawyers, judges, and juries is poor, according to evidence submitted to parliament by a group of researchers from Queen Mary University of London.
The researchers suggest that forensic science is contributing to injustices because of misunderstandings about matching trace evidence to a particular person.
The group have submitted evidence to a House of Lords Science and Technology Committee inquiry into Forensic Science.
The inquiry was set up to explore the role of forensic science within the UK Criminal Justice System in light of concerns over the weaknesses of current forensic methods in the delivery of justice.
The researchers involved include Professor Norman Fenton (School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science), Dr Primoz Skraba (School of Mathematical Sciences), Amber Marks (School of Law), and Dr Ian Walden (Centre for Commercial Law Studies).
When asked about the level of understanding of forensic science within the criminal justice system amongst lawyers, judges and juries, Professor Fenton believes that there needs to be much greater awareness that all evidence is subject to potential errors.
He noted: “Errors can and do occur at every level of evidence evaluation: sampling, measurement, interpretation of results, and presentation of findings. Forensic scientists should articulate, and attempt to quantify, all such possible sources of error. And legal professionals should understand and expect this information, and probe for possible sources of uncertainty when it is not presented by the experts.”
Professor Fenton also believes that injustices are occurring widely because of misunderstandings about the probative value of forensic match evidence.
He advised: “Because many forensic traces from crime scenes are only ‘partial’ and may be subject to various types of contamination, the resulting ‘profile’ is not sufficient to ‘identify’ the person; many people would have a partial profile that matches.
“I have been involved in cases where such assertions have a dramatic impact on the judge and the jury, while even defence lawyers assume their case is impossible to defend. But to interpret this as ‘proof’ that the defendant must have been at the crime scene may be to grossly exaggerate the probative value of the evidence in favour of the prosecution case.”
Furthermore, Professor Fenton argues that the meaning of the word “match” in the context of forensic evidence needs to be re-evaluated. Currently, “a match” between two pieces of evidence is understood to mean that they come from the same source but two pieces of evidence are branded “a match” when their measured characteristics are the same (within an agreed tolerance).
The committee was also advised that lawyers and the judiciary should receive basic training in probability and statistics because the current training available is ‘suboptimal’. This would enable them to understand the statistical analyses presented, to identify any weaknesses in the analyses presented, and to avoid common fallacies such as the prosecutor’s fallacy. In forensic investigations “there is virtually always some degree of uncertainty,” Professor Fenton added.
Elsewhere in the submission, Dr Primoz Skraba highlights an emerging gap is the increasing use of demographic and personal data by companies to identify individuals, which is likely to be used in forensic science in the future.
According to Skraba: “While a company’s misidentification may result in a misplaced advertisement, the consequences in forensic science may be more severe.”
This is not limited to use by private companies; forensic technologies are being used now by agencies such as the Metropolitan Police through its Gangs Matrix, which has raised concerns around the legitimacy of using predictive tools in criminal justice.
Amber Marks noted: “Risk scores generated by police algorithms are shared with multiple agencies and this results in often stigmatic and punitive repercussions for the individual involved, including in policing, educational and medical settings, decisions on benefits and housing entitlements and deportation proceedings, while obviating the procedural safeguards of the criminal trial.”
(Source: House of Lords Website)
Admissibility of evidence obtained by less than acceptable standards is often debated in courts. In light of s56 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA), which came into force on 27 June 2018, David Corker of Corker Binning stresses the importance of eavesdropping evidence in court with some prime case studies.
Criminal justice systems need rules about what can be adduced as evidence. With relevance forming the cornerstone of admissibility, UK rules are promulgated by the common law and increasingly by statute. S56 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 (IPA) is a prime example. For information obtained by State interception of telephone calls, it determines that neither the prosecution nor defence can ever adduce intercept material obtained by a UK State agency. By proscribing mention of its existence, the material does not exist.
Since this exclusionary rule appeared in the Interception of Communications Act 1985, public surveillance has mushroomed: everyone appreciates it is ubiquitous. Yet, the argument runs that if this blanket ban were relaxed, it would disclose how law enforcement detects serious crime, encouraging criminals to develop covert communication methods.
Two recent judgments provide some enlightenment.
The admissibility in criminal proceedings of material obtained from intercepted calls was examined in Virdee v NCA [2018] EWHC 1119, decided by the Admin Court, and R v Knaggs [2018] EWCA 1863 by the Court of Appeal. In both cases, material obtained by a foreign law enforcement agency was passed to the NCA. The ban does not apply to such material.
In Virdee, the German police provided the NCA with recordings that commenced a bribery investigation. It contended that they revealed compelling evidence of plans to bribe Caribbean politicians. In his judgment Holroyde L.J. quoted extensively from the transcripts. Had the ban applied, no investigation would have occurred. The NCA was only able to investigate because the German police had gathered them in connection with another investigation.
In Knaggs the telephone recordings were obtained by Dutch police. Unlike Virdee, the NCA discussed using surveillance with their Dutch counterpart beforehand. The recordings provided evidence of a conspiracy to import Class A drugs into England. The CPS wished to adduce them at trial.
The defendants submitted that the ban rendered them inadmissible, either because the interception was conducted by the NCA and had been made to appear it was done by the Dutch, or they were made by the Dutch at the NCA’s request. Had either submission succeeded the ban would have applied. Obviously, it applies in the first submission, and also in the second because to procure Dutch police assistance, the NCA would have required an English interception warrant. The trial judge held that the liaison did not result in the NCA requesting the Dutch police to conduct the recordings: the Dutch would have done this anyway. There was no reason to believe that circumstances within the ban’s ambit had occurred.
Lessons? First the ban can hamper investigation and prosecution of serious crime. The contention that secrecy is in the public interest is increasingly tenuous. Excerpts quoted in the Virdee judgment reveal that the speakers reminded each other they should speak “offline”; they knew their calls could be intercepted. The ban is therefore redundant and could inadvertently emasculate a putative prosecution when organised criminals slip up. Removing it would permit prosecutors to decide whether or not to adduce such evidence.
Second, the ban creates the conditions for noble cause corruption amongst UK law enforcement officials. Whilst the NCA acted properly, the cases demonstrate that the ban could be circumvented by law enforcement. The contrast between a UK absolutist ban versus a regulated system of admissibility (the norm elsewhere) will stimulate international law enforcement arbitrage, encouraging the nod and the wink or plausible deniability. Neither is desirable.
Figures just released show that the SFO is increasing its use of raids in criminal investigations. Aziz Rahman, of business crime solicitors Rahman Ravelli, explains how and why such raids should be challenged.
The number of raids carried out by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to gather evidence for criminal investigations more than tripled in the past year.
The SFO carried out 30 raids in the last financial year, compared to just nine the previous year. This figure is the highest for six years. These statistics could be seen as an indicator of a more “in your face’’ SFO – an organisation that is increasingly on the front foot when it comes to investigating white-collar crime.
Whether the September arrival of Lisa Osofsky, a former United States prosecutor, as the new SFO Director will mean the current rate of raids being maintained remains to be seen. That will depend as much on the nature of the cases that make their way to the SFO as it will on Ms Osofky’s personal approach to the role of the organisation she is taking over. While the higher raid figures could be proof of a more aggressive SFO, it could just be that the caseload at that time required more raids than in recent years.
It would, therefore, be premature to read too much into the increased number of raids. Maybe if the figures stay high – or go even higher – in the next few years, we will be able to say with certainty that the SFO is increasingly keen to raid those it suspects of wrongdoing.
For now, however, the only real certainty is that the SFO is currently carrying out more raids as part of its criminal investigations than it has for a number of years. And that makes it even more important that any individual or organisation that is the subject of one knows how to respond.
Response
The wrong response to an SFO raid can be damaging to anyone who comes under investigation. What must also be remembered, however, is that a considered, intelligent response to a raid can go a long way to stopping an SFO investigation - or at least ensuring there are plenty of grounds for challenging the SFO’s assumptions, allegations and actions if and when a case goes to trial.
A raid is an important early stage of an investigation. The right response can certainly minimise the damage to the subject of one. Such a response involves knowing your legal options when a raid is carried out so that the agency carrying out the raid – whether it be the SFO or other organisation - does not exceed its powers.
Basic checks on whether there is legal authority for the raid and exactly what type of raid can be carried out need to be made. Also, are those individuals looking to carry out the raid named on the appropriate paperwork? Can they prove their identity? Is the mandate for the raid for the right period of time? These checks may not, on their own, seem such a major step. But they can prevent any abuse of procedures.
A similar, cautious approach is necessary once a raid begins. Anyone who is raided needs to make copies of any documents taken and take notes of any discussions between them and those conducting the raid. Those carrying out the raid must also be followed so that they do not take anything they are not allowed to and do not read anything that may be covered by legal privilege.
Warrants
Investigating authorities must apply for a warrant to raid a premises. Most are issued under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). Rules must be followed regarding the application for a search warrant and the conduct of the raid: if they are not followed, the search and the warrant could be quashed and any property that has been seized may be ordered to be returned. If a defence team can find a breach of any of the rules, it can challenge the legality of the warrant, the raid and any resulting prosecution that an investigating authority brings.
An example of this was Chatwani and others V the National Crime Agency [2015]. The NCA had obtained search warrants for ten defendants and their companies as part of a money laundering investigation. But the case ended with the NCA having to accept that its raids were unlawful and the court ordering that it could not keep any material seized in the raid or any copies of it that had been made. This was because the defendants' lawyers argued successfully that the NCA had not disclosed all relevant matters to the court when applying for search warrants, had not specified what it was searching for when applying for the warrants, had exceeded the warrants’ scope by seizing personal possessions and had not disclosed that it intended to plant listening devices during the raid.
As a case, it shows the importance for the authorities of following the letter of the law in all aspects of the planning and execution of a raid. This was also demonstrated in R (Cook) v Serious Organised Crime Agency [2011], when warrants were issued and searches carried out but schedules to the warrant were not left at the searched premises, as required. The result was the seizure of the items being ruled unlawful and SOCA having to pay damages and certain legal costs. This case also established that unlawful seizure could not be rendered lawful by any subsequent re-seizure.
Tchenguiz
It must also be noted that the SFO has had legal problems of its own arising from a failure to plan and conduct a raid in accordance with the law.
In 2011, the Tchenguiz brothers, Vincent and Robert, were both raided by the SFO in relation to suspected misconduct regarding the collapse of an Icelandic bank. But the SFO ended up reaching costly financial settlements with each brother after it was shown to have over-emphasised certain aspects of the case while applying for the search warrants. The SFO had failed to produce all relevant material, made at least one serious factual omission and demonstrated what the court heard was a “lack of understanding’’ of the brothers’ dealings.
But such findings were only made after the brothers challenged the conduct of the SFO. Any such challenge requires a careful examination of the legal arguments put forward by the SFO - or any other agency – when it seeks a warrant for a raid and its subsequent conduct during the raid.
Rights
The law makes provision for legal challenges to be made to any agency’s activities in relation to a raid.
Section 21 of PACE gives people certain rights of access to their material that has been seized. While officers involved in raids may believe they can take what they want and hold it indefinitely, this is not the case. The Supplementary Attorney General’s Guidance -The Guidance on Disclosure of Digitally Stored Material (July 2011) sets out limits regarding what those carrying out the raid can do with digitally-stored material.
There is scope for a defence team to hold to account anyone involved in a raid who exceeds their powers. The comprehensive scheduling of all seized material, the swift return of computers and no unauthorised copying of material – such as material covered by legal privilege – are matters that can be scrutinised by the defence for any errors on behalf of the raiding agency. And this can all be done before any further challenges are mounted regarding issues such as the reliability of evidence or the validity of the arguments and assumptions that the prosecution are relying on.
It is important to remember that although raids are never pleasant and may be of great use to investigating agencies such as the SFO, they can present opportunities for a defence team to stop an investigation in its tracks if errors have been made by the authorities.
Not every error will lead to a search warrant being quashed. But challenges are, in our opinion and experience, often worthwhile – and a strong, early chance to halt an investigation.
Paul Sachs is a leading expert in the field of legal technology, as well as the founder and CTO of digital evidence management platform CaseLines. Below he offers insight into the future of blockchain within the legal system and court proceedings.
There’s no shortage of commentators pushing their ideas on how artificial intelligence and blockchain can change the world currently. Indeed, while they are undoubtedly right, much substance is often lost when it comes to examining the practical details of it working.
When cryptocurrencies first emerged, supported by the public transaction ledger called blockchain, many commentators were quick to point out it might be the invention of the latter that would inspire the real change in other sectors. It’s now obvious law is one such sector.
The simple reason for this lies in its potential to transform the level of security that is used to protect evidence during the process of a trial. This is more vital than ever as the UK courts are currently undergoing a £1bn modernisation programme that includes the digitisation of many processes as a means of improving efficiency.
These developments will likely lead to the elimination of paper in the trial environment, as the often-painstaking process of using bundles continues to be digitised and the information more easily accessed, both in and outside of the court by the relevant parties. These systems are already in use in many of the UK’s Supreme, Crown and Family courts, as well as various international arbitration courts such as the UAE.
While modernising the system like this is advantageous from a cost, effort and time perspective, using technology always carries new and unique risks. One such difference between physical paper evidence and digital evidence for example, is that digital evidence can be modified. And judges know that. Take the case of Lorraine v. Markel American Insurance Co.
In this case the judge ruled that neither party had provided admissible evidence and went on to give guidance on the admissibility of Electronically Stored Information (ESI). Amongst the judge’s five separate points he said that one must be able to prove that the ESI present is indeed what one claims it to be, going on to describe methods for authenticating evidence which include hash values and meta-data analysis. In his fourth rule, he said that the evidence provided should either be original or an admissible duplicate.
So clearly courts will be demanding a high bar for the admissibility of electronic evidence. The solution to this therefore requires that there can be no doubt about whether evidence presented in the court room is what was originally submitted to the electronic evidence bundle. Particularly given there is likely to be a long time-span between these two dates, especially if the matter is subject to delay and appeal. Despite this, Judges will be aware however high one sets compliance with security and business processes, there is always a human element risk associated with all electronic data systems.
This is where blockchain will play a vital role. The purpose of blockchain is to store a series of transactions in a way that cannot be changed. This is down to a combination of cryptography which renders the data immutable and then its openness, which is how it is distributed amongst a peer-to-peer set of participants.
This unique way in how it collects and handles data, stores each transaction to ensure the details of each stage in the journey are verified against the document being viewed. So once a piece of evidence is entered into the system, there can be no possibility of records being altered or falsified. Thereby eliminating the possibility that evidential material submitted to court can be repudiated. Crucially, while blockchain is a public artefact, inspection of blockchain wouldn’t reveal evidence, only IDs and hash codes. In this way it becomes an incorruptible digital ledger.
When this technology is applied to evidence management, each transformative action in the handling of digital evidence is stored on the blockchain but the evidence itself remains in a secure environment. It is then not possible to photo-shop a picture or splice a video.
Therefore, evidence management systems that do more than simply provide the original electronic file in the court room will need to answer the simple question: Am I looking at something that is irrefutably the same as the original electronic evidence loaded into this system?
By tying blockchain to digital evidence software, this is an achievable goal. Not only guaranteeing that the validity of the document presented will be irrefutable, but also because it provides a platform for further innovation in the legal sector going forward. With security guaranteed, the global legal sector can then continue to confidently pursue innovation and embrace the new digital age.
