A British prosecutor cited a non-existent court ruling three times to justify prosecuting a boy accused of raping his younger sister. According to an investigation, the error may have originated from a summary generated by artificial intelligence. In the UK, around a hundred reports of potential legal errors linked to AI have been recorded.
- A British prosecutor cited a non-existent court ruling three times to justify prosecuting a boy.
- The false reference likely came from an AI-generated summary during an internet search.
- The High Court ruled that the invented case law was insufficient to challenge the prosecution.
- Lawyer Matthew Lee has recorded 101 possible AI-related legal errors, which may be only the tip of the iceberg.
A note based on an untraceable reference
On April 21, Ravinder Dhillon, a British prosecutor specialising in sexual violence, wrote a note to justify prosecuting the boy. At the time of the alleged offences, he was eleven and his sister was seven.
The boy’s lawyers called for the prosecution to be dropped, citing opinions from social workers and a psychologist, among other arguments. The prosecutor, however, considered the charges too serious. To support her decision, she cited three times a Court of Appeal ruling, i.e., a judicial decision made on appeal, which supposedly dated from 2024. The ruling even had a specific reference number, but it does not exist, as the lawyers discovered when examining the note.
The prosecutor acknowledged her mistake and stated she had intended to cite a different ruling from 2009. In a judgment reviewed by franceinfo, the judges of the London High Court deemed this explanation ‘unsatisfactory’.
An AI-generated summary implicated
According to an investigation by the Guardian, published on Tuesday, November 3, the false reference likely came from a summary generated by artificial intelligence during an internet search. The British Crown Prosecution Service acknowledged a research error without providing further details.
For his part, London lawyer Matthew Lee now maintains a register of 101 reports of potential legal errors linked to AI, whether confirmed, suspected, or disputed. In his view, this figure could be just the ‘tip of the iceberg’, as many decisions from British courts are never published.
In the boy’s case, the High Court ultimately ruled that this invented case law was insufficient to challenge the prosecution.
