Witness tried to give remote evidence while driving a van


Vans and trucks: The new virtual courtrooms?

A witness who tried to give evidence by video, first in a van and then in a busy office, shows what can go wrong with remote hearings, a judge has warned.

Recorder Douglas Campbell QC said anyone who obtained an order permitting evidence to be given by video link “would be well advised to think carefully about how the process of giving evidence will actually happen”.

Sitting in the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court in an action for infringement of registered designs, the judge said Dalwinder Singh was one of the first defendant’s witnesses, whom he permitted to give evidence via video link.

“The first time contact was made with Mr Singh, he appeared to be driving a van while dividing his attention between the road in front of him and the camera of a mobile device placed on the passenger seat. I immediately stopped the hearing.”

The judge directed the defendant to re-establish contact once Mr Singh had stopped driving, at which pointed he “appeared to be in a busy office with distracting amounts of background noise”.

“I asked him if he could find a quieter place, which he did. This appeared to be a store room in the same building.

“However, after being sworn it turned out that he had left his witness statement in the busy office. Hence he left the video link running while he went back to the busy office, then returned to the store room with it.

“He was then asked about his exhibit to his witness statement, but he did not have that exhibit with him nor did he appear to know where it was. Similarly he did not seem to know about a brochure to which he had referred in his statement.”

It was at this point that counsel “wisely accepted that the process was not turning out to be a successful one”, and said he would simply rely on Mr Singh’s statement for such weight as it might be thought to be worth.

“This was again realistic,” said Recorder Campbell. “In those circumstances I give Mr Singh’s statement no weight.”

He said he mentioned this to illustrate “the problems that can arise when things go wrong”.

At “a bare minimum”, the judge advised, when the time came for the video link to be activated, “the witness should be in a room with all the case papers before him or her and with no distractions”.

“Otherwise the risk is that the evidence which the party seeks to adduce from that witness will not be given properly, or at all, with potentially adverse consequences for that party’s case.”




Leave a Comment

By clicking Submit you consent to Legal Futures storing your personal data and confirm you have read our Privacy Policy and section 5 of our Terms & Conditions which deals with user-generated content. All comments will be moderated before posting.

Required fields are marked *
Email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Blog


Use the tools available to stop doing the work you shouldn’t be doing anyway

We are increasingly taken for granted in the world of Do It Yourself, in which we’re required to do some of the work we have ostensibly paid for, such as in banking, travel and technology


Quality indicators – peer recommendations over review websites

I often feel that I am banging the SRA’s drum for them when it comes to transparency but it’s because I genuinely believe in clarity when it comes to promoting quality professional services.


Embracing the future: Navigating AI in litigation

Whilst the UK courts have shown resistance to change over time, in the past decade they have embraced the use of some technologies that naturally improve efficiency. Now we’re in the age of AI.


Loading animation