Bogus UK forensic expert convicted

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Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 5:49 pm

Just watched this on UK TV news. Shocked

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6383307.stm

According to the BBC this guy bought his 'fake' diplomas online here...

http://www.rochvilleuniversity.org/

No doubt the RSOT guaranteed his competence and his 'qualifications' enabled him to screw the British taxpayers (of which I used to be one) out of over �250,000 (almost US$ 1/2m)

The cops are now looking into over 700 cases he was involved in giving evidence in going back 30 years.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 24

so he had 30 years of on-the-job experience? Doesnt that make him qualified? Or won't you accept any professional without a degree from an ivy league school?

Laughing

kidding, kidding

note, he's 48 now, that means he started his little career at 18, sounds like he had the balls to pull it off, just not the smarts to legitimize it by attending a university...

Elite Baiter Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 1455

Little bit worrying that someone like that could get you locked up :S

Elite Baiter Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 1455

Even more worrying that he only got five years.

So... five years = 20 months actually inside with parole and tagging ... �250000 gained = �12,500 per month inside, or �416.66 a day, or �17.36 an hour. You could find people that would think that was worth it.

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Jul 2004 Posts: 11857 Location: UK

^^^^^ He will serve a minimum of 30 months, you only serve a third (20 months) on sentences up to 4 years (it used to be different until 1992 when they changed sentencing laws in the criminal justice act, if you were sentenced to 4 years or over after 1992 you served half, before 1992, you served a third of your sentence before you were up for parole), anything 4 years and over and you have to do half the sentence before you are eligible for parole, if you don't get parole, you stay inside until your EDR (earlist date of release), which is the 2 thirds point of the sentence (40 months), or longer if he loses remission for anything whilst banged up.

*** BANNED *** Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 140

Because someone refuses to follow coercive guild rules, he is a scammer?

Dim view of the world you have, buddy. Just because someone refuses to follow unjust law does not make him a bad person.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:20 am

^^^
Huh? Confused

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Apr 2005 Posts: 365

Hey SP, you quoting that from first hand experience???????

And just how long did you serve??? Very Happy

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 7:32 am

@chief2B

My thoughts exactly ( wonder if he smokes rollups as well????)

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:45 am

Franc28 wrote:

... Just because someone refuses to follow unjust law does not make him a bad person.

You are right, it doesn't. The fact that he was not properly fit to do the job he purported to be qualified for, and gain pecuniary advantage from, does.

We (the British taxpayers) now have to cough up the money to investigate the 700 cases he was involved in over the last 30 years. At least it will ease the overcrowding in British jails.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 12:17 pm

Quote:

Just because someone refuses to follow unjust law does not make him a bad person.

No, what makes him a bad person is:

- He supplied evidence to court where people where judged upon evidence that HE didn�t have the proper expertise to provide.
- He took money for a service he didn�t properly supply, because he didn�t have the educational background for it.

What if someone innocent has been sentenced to jail because of one of his "expertises"??? I am sorry, but this man is a shithead and deserves to be locked away. And if anyone got innocently sentenced to prison because of him, this asshole should additionaly be locked away for the time, that the innocent guy had to spend in prison. (even though this is legally impossible I am pretty sure).

Baiting Guru Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 3193

I'm not sure what to think of this story. The guy started out sub-contracting the work. That seems reasonably responsible, except that he's ripping off the tax-payer - but "everyone does that" and apart from his taking credit it's not illegal.

Then I start wondering about real qualifications. No matter what sort of degree you get, it doesn't qualify you to work in the real world at that level. A real degree and a decade of experience probably does. The question then arises whether a further few years working at that level, with the expert help that he certainly had available earlier would qualify him. I don't know. Whichever, he may not have bothered to train himself that far.

What I do know is that he was employed, and his employers either did not check his credentials or took his word for it that they did exist. In all those years not even a single opposing council seems to have questioned them.

After all these years it seems to me that a fake degree is a non-issue. His qualifications should now arise from the work he has produced, not some exams he did or didn't do decades ago. If he is producing random work to get the money then he's guilty as charged. If he is doing professional quality work and generating reports by cutting and pasting relevant and correct paragraphs, then he is innocent.

What is worrying is that someone could work in this field for so long, producing random reports, if that is what he did, and never be questioned. It brings into question the reliability of real experts. When we cannot tell real experts from frauds, we obviously cannot judge their evidence. If random reports are indistinguishable from real reports then both may be as far from reality as each other; we have no way to judge. Those accused by such evidence have no recourse, no matter how inaccurate it may be. It seems to me that untestable evidence is bad evidence, no matter how useful it may appear to be.

Posted: Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:21 pm

In the beginning, Morrison hired real forensic scientists to carry out handwriting and fingerprint analysis which he would pass off as his own and charge clients double.

But later he simply cut and pasted old reports together and changed details, the court heard.

He gave 'evidence' in cases involving armed robbery, rape, death by dangerous driving, unexplained death and drugs offences.

This Walter Mitty deserves all that he gets.

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