The case of R v Jerome Gibson provides a clear warning about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to prepare witness statements in criminal proceedings.
This Court of Appeal case concerned a victim’s personal statement (VPS), which had been drafted using Microsoft Copilot, with the aim of maximising its emotional impact and influencing the offender’s sentence.
Although not an inquest decision, this case provides is a clear warning about the misuse of AI generated content in other judicial settings, including the Coroner’s Courts.
Background
The proceedings concerned the appeal of the conviction of the offences of grievous bodily harm, threatening with a bladed article and damaging property, whereby the offender was sentenced to 44 months’ imprisonment.
The offender sought permission to appeal their sentence on three grounds.
One of the grounds for appeal concerned the Crown’s reliance on a VPS prepared using AI. A police officer had uploaded the victim’s interview transcript to Microsoft Copilot and requested the following:
“From this victim interview I want you to create the most impactful victim personal statement possible, with a focus on the knife offence but featuring the abuse as a whole also. I want you to create it so that it meets the higher harm category for sentencing."
The officer then referred to the sentencing guidelines and instructed Copilot to provide the following:
“Impress upon these if possible. Your goal is to achieve the highest sentence and the most tear-jerking VPS to make a judge or reader weep when reading."
Although the resulting statement drew on information provided by the victim during the interview, the Court of Appeal noted that it read more like an exercise in “rhetoric or advocacy” than a factual account.
The appeal
The appeal raised three grounds including insufficient account of mitigating factors, the influence of the VPS, and inadequate reflection of the principle of totality.
However, at sentencing the judge recognised the AI elements of the VPS and confined the assessment to the facts of the offences and matters which the victim had specifically recounted during the interview.
The Court of Appeal did not consider that anything beyond the facts had been taken into account when determining the sentence, and the appeal was therefore dismissed.
The court’s warning
Despite dismissing the appeal, the court expressed concern about the way the statement had been prepared:
“We need hardly say that no police officer should ever prepare a witness statement of any kind in this way and that no statement prepared in this way should ever be relied on in a criminal case”
A wider reminder for witness statements
Although this is a criminal case, it serves as a reminder for those working across all jurisdictions that using AI to shape witness statements to influence proceedings is unacceptable.
A witness statement must accurately reflect the witness’s own knowledge, rather than be shaped to achieve a desired outcome. Practice Direction 32 requires the statement, if practicable, to be in the witness’s own words and drafted in their own language. Signing a false witness statement verified by a statement of truth can have serious consequences for the author of the witness statement.
Get in touch with Beth Farrer to discuss the issues raised in this blog and you can find out more about our inquest support here.
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