Smart glasses: Judge did not believe witness’s evidence on their use
A claimant giving evidence in the High Court was fed answers through smart glasses he was wearing that were connected to his mobile phone, a judge has found.
ICC Judge Agnello KC said that not only did she find Laimonas Jakstys “untruthful in denying his use of the smart glasses” and claiming that the calls he had made were to a taxi driver, but also that his evidence was “unreliable and untruthful” too.
This extended to his witness statement, which the judge found had been drafted by others.
The action brought by Mr Jakstys and Lithuanian company UAB Business Enterprise on the Insolvency and Companies List was they were the owners of Oneta Ltd and that the company’s register be rectified. Mr Jakstys also sought reinstatement as a director of Oneta.
The judge recounted: “Mr Jakstys gave his evidence through an interpreter. Right at the start of his cross examination, he seemed to pause quite a bit before replying to the questions being asked. These questions were interpreted and then there was a pause before there was a reply.
“After several questions, [Sarah Walker, counsel for the defendants] then informed me that she could hear an interference coming from around Mr Jakstys and asked if Mr Jakstys could take his glasses off for a period as she was aware smart glasses existed.
“The interpreter, who was sitting in the witness box alongside Mr Jakstys confirmed to the court that she could also hear the interference coming from around Mr Jakstys.
“It was later ascertained that Mr Jakstys was wearing smart glasses. I asked him to remove them before continuing with his cross examination. After a few further questions, when the interpreter was in the process of translating a question, Mr Jakstys’ mobile phone started broadcasting out loud with the voice of someone talking.
“There was clearly someone on the mobile phone talking to Mr Jakstys. He then removed his mobile phone from his inner jacket pocket. At my direction, the smart glasses and his mobile were placed into the hands of his solicitor.”
When counsel inspected the glasses at the end of the first day’s hearing, they connected to Mr Jackstys’ phone when they were switched on. The following day, the judge directed that the video link was to be switched off.
Mr Jakstys denied that he was using the glasses to receive answers and that they were linked to his mobile phone at the time.
He agreed to his phone and the meta data being checked; a photo was taken of the screen showing the calls made during his evidence.
Mr Jakstys was in the witness box on the afternoon of 19 and whole of 20 January. On 22 January, he said he had been robbed of his two mobile phones and his passport the day before.
“No copy of a police report was produced by Mr Jakstys to the court,” Judge Agnello observed. “No witness statement was produced setting out the details of the robbery.”
The following day, after all the claimants’ other witnesses had given evidence, Mr Jakstys went back into the witness box.
He claimed that the multiple calls on 19 January made to a person named on his phone as ‘abra kadabra’ were to tell a taxi driver that he was at court, did not know what time he would finish and he would call later to tell him.
“When he was pressed as to why all these calls were made with the same message, Mr Jakstys stated that he was not able to remember. This was a reply which he also gave frequently during his evidence.”
Judge Agnello did not believe the excuse. “Moreover, the last call was made within minutes before he went into the witness box. The call log does not make it clear when and if that last call was terminated.”
She continued: “In my judgment, from what occurred in court, it is clear that call was made, connected to his smart glasses and continued during his evidence until his mobile phone was removed from him.
“When asked about this, his explanation was that he thought it was Chat GPT which caused the voice to be heard from his mobile phone once his smart glasses had been removed. That lacks any credibility.
“In my judgment, the smart glasses were clearly connected to his mobile phone during his cross examination because no voice was heard out loud until his smart glasses were removed and disconnected from his glasses.”
Ms Walker submitted that Mr Jakstys was being coached by Lithuanian lawyer Dr Paulius Miliauskas, who has acted for Oneta and Mr Jakstys and was the only person watching the hearing via video link.
The judge said: “For current purposes, I do not have to determine who was coaching Mr Jakstys, but I accept that Mr Jakstys was being assisted or coached in his replies to questions put to him during cross examination until this was stopped.”
The unreliability of Mr Jakstys’ evidence also arose because the judge found that his witness statements were “clearly prepared by others”.
Further, he asserted that his level of English was poor and he could not read English, but signed statements of truth on documents written in English.
Judge Agnello concluded by rejecting Mr Jakstys’ evidence “in its entirety” and ultimately found for the defendants, making an indemnity costs order in their favour.
Ms Walker told Legal Futures: “This was a career first for me but, with technological advances, may well be something that litigators have to deal with much more frequently in the coming years.”
Writing on LinkedIn, Saara Idelbi, a barrister at 39 Essex, said: “This time it was a human coach. Next time it will be AI. Tales abound of litigants-in-person already enabling voice mode on devices in court to be coached how to respond to judicial questions or submissions.
“AI wearables – smart glasses, watches, necklaces, lapel pins – are a major goal of several frontier AI companies.
“On this occasion, the signal interference is what caught the second claimant in this case. An LLM delivering text through a screen or smart glasses, or audio through an earbud, might not produce that same giveaway. This case shows us how dangerous smart wearables can be.”
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