Computer Generated Evidence in Court :: Computers Technology Courtroom Essays

Computer Generated Evidence in CourtIntroductionWe are living in what is usually described as an information society and asthe business community makes ever greater use of computers the courts are goingto find that increasingly the disputes before them turn on designate which has atsome stage passed through or been processed by a computer. In order to keep instep with this fare it is vital that the courts are able to take account ofsuch evidence. As the Criminal Law Revision Committee recognised, theincreasing use of computers by the trademark Office, local authorities, banks andbusiness firms to store information will make it more difficult to prove certainmatters such as cheque card frauds, unless it is viable for this to be donefrom computers (CLRC 1972, para 259).AdmissibilityThe law of evidence is concerned with the means of proving the facts which arein issue and this necessarily involves the adduction of evidence which is thenpresented to the court. The law admits eviden ce only if it complies with therules governing admissibility. Computer output is only admissible in evidencewhere special conditions are satisfied. These conditions are set out in degreein section 69 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 (see furtherNyssens 1993, Reed 1993 and Tapper 1993).In general the principles of admissibility are that the evidence must(prenominal) berelevant to the proof of a fact in issue, to the credibility of a witness or tothe reliability of other evidence, and the evidence must not be inadmissible byvirtue of some particular rule of law (Keane 1994, pp 15-20 Tapper 1990, pp 51-61).Real evidence usually takes the form of some existent object (including computeroutput) produced for inspection in order that the court may draw an inferencefrom its own observation as to the existence, condition or take to be of the objectin question. Although real evidence may be extremely valuable as a means ofproof, little if any weight attaches to it unles s accompanied by testimony whichidentifies the object in question and explains its connection with, orsignificance in relation to, the facts in issue or relevant to the issue.This is illustrated in the case of R v Wood (1982) 76 Cr App R 23 where theappellant was convicted of handling stolen metals. In order to prove that metal set up in his possession and metal retained from the stolen consignment had thesame chemical composition cross-checking was undertaken and the figures producedwere subjected to a laborious mathematical process in order that the dower