Isophoric News · Tuesday, November 3, 2026
High Court calls a prosecutor's explanation for citing a nonexistent case "unsatisfactory"
Two High Court judges said a senior crown prosecutor's explanation of how a nonexistent appeal court case came to be cited, in the decision to continue prosecuting a 14-year-old boy, was "unsatisfactory," in a judgment handed down on Oct. 29 that dismissed the boy's challenge to his prosecution. The Crown Prosecution Service's written decision cited R v J [2024] EWCA Crim 3529, which the judgment says does not exist; the prosecutor said in a witness statement that she had meant a 2009 House of Lords decision. The Guardian, which reported the case on Tuesday, said it understood the citation came from an AI response generated during an internet search. The judges, Lord Justice Holgate and Mr Justice Wall, ruled that the error did not affect the outcome, and the boy, who was charged in November 2025 over an alleged sexual offense when he was 11, is due for trial in the youth court on Nov. 6, according to the judgment. The CPS told the Guardian that it had "identified an error had occurred from conducting legal research using the internet," that its policy limits AI so it is not used to make legal decisions, and that an internal review checked that no other cases were affected. The judgment does not mention artificial intelligence. The Guardian reported that this was the second known case of nonexistent authorities cited by a CPS lawyer, after one the service admitted in February.
