Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay in FT on SFO’s disclosure software problems
24 Apr 2024
Christopher Houssemayne du Boulay has been quoted in the Financial Times commenting on problems with the SFO’s Autonomy Introspect disclosure review system.
Christopher noticed it was not returning expected results for certain search terms during Hickman & Rose’s defence of an individual in G4S, which the SFO cryptically explained was ‘because of the punctuation’.
This was one of the many issues leading to the collapse of that prosecution in 2023.
Since then the SFO has launched a review of its approach to handling the software tool, which the FT reports was “used on dozens of cases”.
Christopher told the FT: “It is very concerning that this may have affected many other SFO cases for many years, particularly if the SFO knew about the issue but did not inform the defence“.
He added that the SFO “needs to urgently investigate the full extent of the problem and review whether any miscarriages of justice may have arisen as a result.”
The full FT article is here.
