Our Director of Operations Emma Luxton provides information on our review of past e-discovery software.
In a February 2025 post we committed to updating on the findings of our review of past cases on our legacy e-discovery system and this work is almost complete.
We identified 66 historic conviction cases that used our legacy Autonomy system, which we needed to check to see whether there was any material which might cast doubt upon the safety of any past conviction.
Only three cases now remain to be reviewed, and I can confirm that we have not found any material which casts doubt upon the safety of any past conviction.
Reviewing these past cases has been a crucial step in meeting our post-conviction disclosure obligations to defendants and we have contacted every defendant possible to share the findings and process of review with them.
If you are a defendant and believe your case may have been affected, and have not heard from us already, please contact us directly via publicenquiries@sfo.gov.uk.
A further update
In late November 2025, we discovered a different issue with our legacy e-discovery system Autonomy, which means we have begun some further reviews on past cases.
This issue relates to how some digital container files were expanded on our system, meaning some items may not have been available for review on the platform.
We believe the issue may have affected approximately 20 cases, of which we have already resolved one finding no evidence of any material having been missed. Steps are now being taken to review the other cases.
As before, we continue to discuss this work and our review process with the Attorney General’s Office and HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
We take our obligations as a responsible prosecutor very seriously and we recognise that, although we have not seen any evidence of this, we need to satisfy ourselves that no relevant and disclosable material was missed.
This issue does not affect our current e-discovery system.
We will share a further update on conclusion of the reviews.
