Clause 65 - New and compelling evidence
Criminal Justice Bill
11:00 am
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome, Liberal Democrat)
That is precisely the point. The example that I cited involved analysing large amounts of material. The evidence was available, but it could not reasonably have been obtained because the resource implications would have been too substantial. Modern techniques would make it possible to adduce that evidence by running all the receipts through a powerful computer capable of recognising patterns that an individual could recognise if his brain were big enough. Certain questions of definition need to be considered. I certainly do not believe that we should be too prescriptive, but perhaps the Minister will expand his world view to all the possibilities and give thought to how we could provide better definitions.
I end by making a suggestion. Because technology in this area is developing so fast and because it will not be clear to people engaged in the law—in whatever capacity, including jurors—how to assess the validity of evidence, the subject should be kept under review. However, I do not know whether the Law Commission could set up a technology sub-committee to review new techniques and give guidance on their application in forensic work. I take issue with the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner), because ''forensic'' simply means relating to a court, so a definition including the word ''forensic'' would have no meaning at all. That word is often used as shorthand for science, but in the phrase
''forensic science'', the word ''science'' means science and ''forensic'' refers to court procedure.
There is a case for such a review, which could give clear guidance to judges on the evidential and probative value of certain techniques and regularly update them. Without that, I fear we shall see yet another example of the legal system finding it difficult to keep pace with the rate of change in science and technology, which, I believe, will gallop ahead in the next few years.