Controversial Forensic Expert Arrested on Child Porn Charge

Early last Thursday, police in Market Harborough and Rugby arrested two forensics experts, Jim Bates and Chris Magee, on charges of "conspiracy to possess indecent images of children". Jim Bates has frequently given testimony in computer forensic and child pornography cases, and had been working on a case along with Magee, who is a director of Cyber Forensics.

The arresting officers also seized large quantities of material, both hard copy and digital, from the two men. This included material that is claimed to be "privileged" within the meaning of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

Jim Bates is controversial. He has testified extensively and often in criminal cases, but is best known for his role in defending individuals accused of downloading child porn, and for his criticism of Operation Ore, which resulted in thousands of child pornography arrests in the UK.

Talking to The Register he made it clear that he sees the official investigation of many such cases as systematically flawed. He is scathing of police "experts" in this area, arguing that most lack the expertise to carry out all but the most basic of analyses. According to Bates: “Computer Forensics is not about proving innocence or guilt, but about finding facts and providing them to the court".

Clearly, he is a thorn in the side of authority, but he hasn't exactly helped his cause by misrepresenting his own background. Until recently, he was claiming a BSc in Engineering which he was subsequently shown not to have.

In a hearing at Crown Court earlier this year, Bates was found guilty of perjury for having misrepresented his qualifications. But in closing remarks, Judge Hammond observed that he was "not a charlatan", and further that he had "a real expertise", and had "just embellished his status".

Since being convicted of perjury, Bates has effectively been barred from acting as an expert witness. But he still provides advice on cases, and it was in this capacity that he and Chris Magee visited a Bristol Police station in June of this year.

They went there to clone a hard drive which was central to an ongoing case. According to Bates, this was a procedure he had carried out many times before in similar cases, and there was no hint of any difference in this one.

They examined the machine in situ, carried out tests for presence of malware, and took a video of the proceedings. When they left, they took with them a copy of the original hard drive.