More than 5,000 handed criminal convictions in error after IT flaw goes unnoticed

More than 5,000 defendants were wrongly given criminal convictions thanks to an IT flaw which went unnoticed for six months.

Guilty pleas were entered in error at magistrates’ courts around the country when the Covid virus restricted their operation and masses of cases had to be adjourned.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating the mistakes, following a referral by the Ministry of Justice last November.

“A bulk amendment facility, to update the cases of magistrates’ hearings adjourned due to the impact of the pandemic, had plea data inaccurately changed on the court IT system,” HM Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) said in its annual report, which last week revealed the scale of the problem for the first time. “The Ministry of Justice has made us aware of an incident and we are making enquiries,” an ICO spokeswoman said.

Magistrates’ courts at Westminster, Highbury, Wimbledon, Willesden, Thames, Uxbridge, Croydon, Bexley, and Bromley are understood to have been involved.

When a report in The Guardian last October questioned the accuracy of convictions on the Police National Computer, after it emerged a guilty plea had been erroneously recorded against a woman for a violent crime she denied, HMCTS apologised but dismissed the incident as a “slip”. However, it has since identified 5,231 individual defendants and 55 companies who were affected.

Thanks to an glitch in the system used for the mass adjournments, guilty pleas were copied on to cases that defendants were contesting.

It is understood that incorrect pleas, which were entered on court databases and passed on to the PNC, were initially amended individually when cases came back for hearings and the error was spotted. When the true scale of the problem was discovered in October last year, a comprehensive review was ordered and not guilty pleas restored by mid-November.

However, it is understood an erroneous conviction could have appeared in a criminal record check if it was conducted before a case was brought back to court or the problem was fixed.

“People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information... responsibly,” the ICO said in a statement. A HMCTS spokeswoman said: “This was a temporary issue that was promptly resolved. No one received an incorrect verdict or sentence.”