The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is reviewing the performance of e-discovery software it has used for identifying evident and other relevant material in its criminal investigations and prosecutions.
Interim director of legal services Matthew Wagstaff, who is leading the review, has explained that an issue relevant to the Autonomy Introspect system that was previously used by the SFO could have had a bearing on its handling of some cases of suspected fraud.
Wagstaff said that, due to the Autonomy software’s search function requiring search terms to be constructed to identify variations in the words – it could have resulted in relevant and disclosable material being missed.
This has prompted the organisation to look back at cases in which Autonomy was used to see how search terms were constructed and used by its case teams. An initial review has been completed, prioritising cases in which defendants are serving custodial sentences.
Further enquiries
So far, many cases that were not affected by the issue have been identified, but there are others for which further enquiries are needed and no decision has been made. The work is ongoing and is likely to involve some searches being re-run.
“In all cases we have reviewed to data, we have not seen any material which undermines the safety of the conviction,” Wagstaff said.
SFO has also applied a technical fix to its Axcelerate software – which it is now using – after staff identified an encoding issue affecting the way some words appeared in documents ingested into the system. It said the issue has been corrected, it has informed all relevant defendants and will share information with future defendants via pre-trial hearings.
“We remain confident in the efficacy and integrity of our system,” Wagstaff said, adding that SFO will publish further information when appropriate.
That Attorney General’s Office and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate are also contributing to the review.
Although the development may raise questions about similarities to the Post Office Horizon scandal, in which software failures led to the convictions of a large number of sub-postmasters, the review and the SFO's statements convey that it is aiming to prevent the use of any incorrect evidence and taking a more transparent approach.
It has also emphasised that the issue has been in the search functions on the software products it used, and stated that so far there is no evidence of any unjustified convictions in this case.
More detail added to comparison with Post Office issue after further clarification from SFO on 5.2.02
