Googling risks trial bias, warns QC Findlay

Published on Tuesday 20 October 2009 21:55

THE impartiality of jury trials in Scotland could be hampered as an increasing number of jurors are using the internet to research cases in which they are involved, two of Scotland's top criminal lawyers have warned.

Donald Findlay, QC, claimed the Scottish Government had adopted an "ostrich approach" to the problem of jury members "googling" details of criminal trials when they are sent home overnight.

And Paul McBride, QC, warned that jurors tempted to conduct online research posed a "real danger" to the fairness of criminal trials in Scotland.

Mr Findlay, who has acted in some of the country's most notorious criminal cases, said: "I don't believe that the system does anything to combat (internet searching], but rather it has adopted an ostrich approach."

He said the fairness of the trial of William Begg for the "limbs in the loch murder" in 2001 could have been damaged by internet research. "We showed a lot of internet material available at the time, and the Crown argued that it was no different than back copies of newspapers," he said. "But my response was that… it's so much easier to type someone's name into a search engine than to trawl the archives of a library.

"The law works on a fiction that jurors always do what they are told and must only decide the case on the merits of the evidence presented, but I am not convinced of that."

Mr Findlay warned that the situation was even more worrying because the information returned in an internet search was not always accurate.

"You're not getting fact but media coverage, which may or may not be fact, and that is a very dangerous situation," the QC said.

Mr McBride said that he, too, was concerned the practice was on the increase.

"It would take a fairly strong juror, especially in a high-profile trial, to resist the temptation of the internet," he warned. "They are told by judges only to listen to the evidence and not to discuss the case with anybody else. What they are not told is if you go home and google a name, you could find out the defendant's history and the circumstances of the offence.

"They are given no warning, probably for fear of tempting them to do it. I think they should be given a specific warning about it, because we know that jurors have ignored judges' warnings," said Mr McBride. "We know that they have visited the scenes of crimes when they are not supposed to, and we know that in England there was a ouija board taken into the jury room."

He added: "Nowadays, when every kid in the street has a mobile with access to Google, the temptation to type somebody's name in, or even that of their lawyer, is a real danger."

A Scottish Court Service spokesman said the matter was for the presiding judge to enforce. But he added: "Sufficient arrangements are in place to ensure that a judge can direct jurors to have regard only to the evidence heard in court in relation to the case."