Phone-hacking trial: judge admonishes police expert witness
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Version 0 of 1. The judge in the phone-hacking trial has admonished a police witness after he admitted to making three mistakes in the interpretation of data relating to mobile phone movements near Rebekah Brooks's country home in Oxfordshire. David Cutts, a senior forensic engineer employed by the Metropolitan police, also admitted to Mr Justice Saunders that he did not check over his evidence "once again" before appearing in court as an expert witness. The data concerned the movements of Mark Hanna, News International's head of security, and other security assistants on the morning of Brooks's arrest on Sunday 17 July 2011. Saunders said: "you have been wrong on at last three occasions and accepted you have been wrong". He said the mistakes were "serious ones" and that the "court, jury and public should be able to rely on experts exercising proper care" with their evidence. He told the witness he had "failed to provide a satisfactory explanation" for the mistakes and it was important that expert witnesses "get it right". On cross-examination by Hanna's counsel William Clegg QC, David Cutts admitted that he had made three mistakes in his interpretation of mobile phone cell-site data. When he made his first admission that two of his entries relating to calls made on the Sunday morning were wrong, Clegg accused of him of being in "a fundamental muddle". It has already been agreed in court that Hanna stayed overnight in Oxford on Saturday 16 July 2011. However his precise movements, mapped by an expert police witness, proved to be faulty. When Clegg challenged him on a further assertion relating to Hanna's whereabouts asking if he had made another mistake, he hesistated in his answer. Saunders intervened and told Cutts: "Just say yes." Cutts replied: "Yes." Cutts also admitted that he had not seen Hanna's version of the story on that Sunday morning and had not analysed the mobile phone data to test his version of events. Cutts, who is employed by the Met police as an independent expert, said he would normally ask for the defence statement in order to test both sides of the case but on this occasion he had not been provided with Hanna's statement. Clegg put it to him that the statement had been available for 10 months before he analysed the data. Saunders also challenged the witness on claims that data registered on the mobile phone mast half a mile away from the Brooks's could be definitively interpreted as at the precise location. Cutts said his interpretation always puts mobile phone traffic "at or in the vicinity" of a location within range of a cell site. Saunders put it to him: "Half a mile away is not in normal English at the place and you could have explained that." The trial continues. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |