International Law

UK computer forensics expert Jim Bates wins High Court appeal against a police search warrant

Hopefully none of the Forensics Experts mentioned in the previous Spy Blog article

Operation Alegbra child rape convictions in Scotland: open WiFi tracking, digital camera image forensics

will get treated like the UK Digital Forensics expert Jim Bates, who, despite 30 years experience as an expert for both the Prosecution and the Defence, in many cases involving child porn images on computers, seems to have been targeted by the Police, and arrested, on exactly the same charges as most of the people in the Operation Algebra case were convicted of i.e. "conspiracy to possess indecent images of children".

See The Register Paedo case expert Jim Bates arrested on child porn charge

Presumably this has something to do with the disastrous handling of the massive Operation Ore investigation, where Jim Bates acted for some the defendants, and where it was proven that many of the thousands of people who were suspected of being in possession of "child porn, had actually had their credit card numbers stolen and used on the FBI run child porn website, or had suffered from pop up child porn adverts, when browsing legal adult porn websites.

See investigative journalist Duncan Campbell's article in The Guardian: Operation Ore flawed by fraud

Last week saw the publication of the successful High Court Appeal by Jim Bates, against the validity of the search warrant used by the Avon and Somerset Police to search his home in September 2008.

See the text of the Judgment on the BAILII website: Bates & Anor v Chief Constable of the Avon and Somerset Police & Anor [2009] EWHC 942 (Admin) (08 May 2009), which explains the legal background to this extraordinary case:

Mr Justice Owen :

28. I consider that Mr Jones' submission is well founded. Given their knowledge of the first claimant's role as an expert witness over many years, I do not consider that either the officers or the justice could have been satisfied that there were reasonable grounds for believing that the first claimants' computers would not contain material subject to legal privilege or special procedure material. It seems clear that they did not address the question. Had they done so, they must have come to the conclusion that the first claimant's computers might contain such material. In those circumstances there was a means by which the police could have examined the computers for material relevant to their investigation, namely by exercising the power of seizure contained in sections 50-52 of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001, but as I have already observed, they did not do so. Accordingly in my judgment there was no jurisdiction to issue the warrant in the form in which it was sought and issued. Accordingly I would quash the warrant on this ground, and grant the relief sought, namely a declaration that the entry and search of the premises, and the seizures made in the course of the search, were unlawful.

GROUND (d)
29. Ground (d) is directed at the extension of the search. DI Cawsey gave evidence in her witness statement that she authorised the extension of the search under section 19 when it was reported to her that a large number of computers and hard discs had been found in the course of execution of the warrant. But if the warrant was not lawfully issued, it could not have been extended under section 19; and it follows that the seizure of the materials the subject of the purported extension was also unlawful.

Lord Justice Richards :

30. I agree.

Hopefully the Crown Prosecution Service will now drop the charges against Jim Bates and Chris Magee.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on May 09, 2009 (boomark / email).