Rape trial collapses after accuser uses AI

You are right. I should have said: Of the women who claim to have been raped and reported it to the police, only 1-3% achieve a conviction. Not all the perpetrators will be identified, so the number of men who were accused of rape and walk free is actually less than 97-99%.

We should keep in mind that only a small minority (about 15%) of women who have been raped report the assault to the police.

What?????

How was that the occams razor conclusion?

Mine is she used AI to better articulate herself better because rape is traumatising and disorienting and she knows how unlikely a conviction is and hoped it would help her fall into the slim category of women who get "justice" via a successful a successful conviction and inappropriately short jail term.

No, it sounds like she's used AI to generate answers to questions in court. This isn't summarising testimony she has already written.

A good barrister will prepare you for what happens in court by telling you things like "the cross examination will be aggressive and here are some of the questions you may be asked". That is witness familiarisation and is allowed.

What they CANNOT do, and what it sounds like AI has been used for here, is to then go on to say "and here are some example answers you could give". THAT is witness coaching and is illegal.

But there is the problem - you cannot use a third party to "fill in" anything because those filled in parts are not testimony coming from you.

Yes, except an interpreter (spoken word; translator for written word) is a trained professional whilst an AI is not actually intelligent and can make all sorts of odd mistakes.

Witness coaching isn’t permitted, using AI or any other means.

It sounds to me like she's looking for a way to make her case more believable. Why use AI unless she doesn't think she has enough proof.

Why use AI to help revise your CV unless you think your experience isn't good enough and you just shouldn't bother to look for a job?

It sounds to me like the court has hee haw idea about how AI works, which is quaint and archaic but possible. And that they have no idea what rape is like, which is really concerning.

I think another analogy might be when a translator is used when the victim doesn’t speak English. There’s going to be a struggle to communicate and the translator is going to be deciding on nuances like feeling forced to have sex (rape by coercion) vs forcible sex (rape by assault)

So she's asked chat gpt to sum up her experience, from what she can recall, as she was too drunk to give consent to an ex?
I don't see how that's tampering. It's like when AI summarises my emails for me, rather than my stream of consciousness BS.
So what's the analogy? Is it like when an exam scribe has to write ad verbatim what a candidate pupil dictates and mustn't change a word or improve their spelling/grammar?

Only 1-3% of women who have been raped achieve a conviction. That means 99% of men accused of rape walk free.

That is statistically not correct. It would be correct only if it were the case that every woman who has been raped makes a complaint.

For instance: if only 3% of women who have been raped make a complaint, and still 3% of women who had been raped achieve a conviction, then every complaint results in a conviction and no man accused of rape has walked free.

You might prefer to say that 99% of men guilty of rape go free.

I think that’s wrong to not allow AI. It can be impossible to write exactly what happened yourself because of the enormity of having to relive it. Using AI to fill in the unspoken is an aid. The victim is still going to proofread it to ensure it’s not exaggerated or untrue and then sign it under oath of perjury.

I don't think concluding she is "flaky" is what's happening here.

There have been strict rules against witness coaching in the UK, for good reason, for many years. It's an abuse of process. It makes it hard to distinguish what is genuine testimony first hand from the witness and what has been provided by a third party. If there is witness coaching then the evidence is inadmissible and the trial collapses.

In this case, R v FGD [2026] EWCA Crim 918, the prosecution didn't even attempt to deny that the use of AI amounted to witness coaching / training. The prosecutions defence was that there should be other ways of addressing this prejudice and that the stay needn't be granted.

NB witness coaching is different to witness preparation or familiarisation which is completely legal and designed to give witnesses an idea of what will happen in court and is about the process rather than the testimony.

The use of AI in trials and tribunals has been problematic for a number of years now. "Precedents" have been provided for cases that don't exist; the AI hallucinates them.

As far as I know, this is the first case in which the use of AI technology to has been ruled to be witness coaching.

I suspect it's something we'll see more of to be honest. Technology evolves faster than the law and our courts do, and legislation is always running to keep up.

It's not to do with the accuser as an individual and whether she's flaky or not, it's our courts navigating their way through unchartered waters.

This should be a gift link
Rape trial collapses after accuser uses AI
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/7cf50f9b0e462699

I couldn’t find the article at first… it’s in the business section.

I can’t see the article either.

There must be a glitch somewhere. I have just read it without a subscription.

Not possible to read the article without a subscription

I forgot you need a library card. Big brother.

Yes, go to a library in another city.

Quite. What is unjust is that they are not coached first in how to deal with it, and how to present the series of events and actions in their case.

Surely everyone knows that victims in rape trials often face aggressive and hostile questioning? In that case, it's perfectly natural to want to prepare yourself to make sure you can give good answers.

I think this comment is odd. So quick to blame the victim.

First, there had to be sufficient proof that she’s believable in order for the CPS to even consider a trial. Second, why shouldn’t she enter prompts such as ‘what kinds of questions will I be asked’? That seems like an entirely reasonable response to being extremely anxious about being interrogated by a defense barrister trying to pick holes in your statement. Many women talk about the trial feeling like they are being violated all over again. Rather than her ‘looking to make her case more believable’.

And there is sufficient evidence for a retrial to proceed at the earliest opportunity.