Dr Wright
Dr Wright made 15 witness statements:
Wright1 {E/1/1} providing his principal evidence in chief.
Wright2 {E/2/1} addressing RFI requests about the signing sessions.
Wright3 {E/3/1} giving his version of the mock cross-examination (in response to an Order).
Wright4 {E/4/1} addressing the remaining RFI requests.
Wright5 {E/20/1} explaining why the two new hard drives were not previously included in his disclosure.
Wright6 {E/21/1} confirming the facts and statements in Ms Field’s first statement (in support of the application to adjourn the trial and to admit the Additional Documents).
Wright7 {E/22/1} addressing the tweets for Mr Ager-Hanssen about the new documents being fake.
Wright8 {E/23/1} relating to his computer environment, which was part of his explanation for signs of inauthenticity in his documents.
Wright9 {E/26/1} responding to Prof Meiklejohn’s report (with an appendix attempting to explain some signs of inauthenticity).
Wright10 {E/31/1} providing more assertions about his computing environments.
Wright11 {CSW/1/1}, which was supposed to give his final reply evidence. This was an extremely long statement, comprising 1476 paragraphs over 246 pages. It was served on 12 January 2024, along with an application notice by which Shoosmiths sought permission to sign a modified certificate of compliance with PD57AC, which entailed inserting ‘To the best of my ability…’ in two places relating to compliance with PD57AC and PD32, [18.1] & [18.2] and with the Statement of Best Practice. On the first day of trial, I refused Shoosmiths’ application, for reasons in the ruling I gave at the start of the second day of trial. As COPA observed, this application was effectively a concession that PD57AC had not been complied with. COPA then served a lengthy Schedule of Objections on 16 January 2024, to Wright11 and its Appendices, citing 7 types of objection to large swathes of these materials. As part of my pre-reading I spent many hours reading Wright11 and the objections, many of which appeared to be well-founded. Fortunately I was relieved of the task of ruling on those objections, being told on the first day of trial that the parties had reached a compromise on Wright11, agreeing passages which were to be redacted. In due course, a redacted copy of Wright11 was put into the trial bundle. Later, Dr Wright wanted an unredacted copy to be available, although I am not at all sure that any of the passages agreed to be redacted were referred to.
Wright12 {CSW/7/1} which further addresses the BDO Drive.
Wright13 {E/32/1}, served after COPA’s opening Skeleton Argument had been written, in support of his application to rely on further documents.
Wright14 {E/33/1} providing chain of custody information for the White Paper LaTeX files.
Wright15 {E/34/1} concerning the MYOB Ontier email.
At Trial, Dr Wright was called for cross-examination in three separate sessions, being sworn on the first occasion and re-sworn on the second and third occasions:
The first session occupied Days 2-8 of the Trial (6th-9th & 12th-14th February).
The second occupied Day 15 (23 February 2024).
The third was a relatively short session on Day 19 (1 March 2024).
During these sessions, we generally took a break after an hour of cross-examination, although on occasion, the period extended by 20-30 minutes or so to the conclusion of the morning or afternoon session. Particularly bearing in mind we were in an extremely hot courtroom for the first week of the trial, Dr Wright showed impressive stamina throughout. His wife was in court throughout to advise on whether he was showing signs of dysregulation. During his cross-examination on Day 15, Dr Wright appeared to me on occasion to be speaking more loudly than previously, but that may have been on account of the adjustment of the amplification system in Court on that day. However, at no point did there seem to be any sign of dysregulation, nor was any warning to that effect given by his wife or legal team. So, in my view, the set of agreed adjustments were adhered to and proved effective.
Lord Grabiner KC did intervene numerous times during Dr Wright’s cross-examination to warn Mr Hough KC about trespassing on matters which were privileged, interventions which also warned Dr Wright. In my judgment, Mr Hough was well aware when his question might encroach on privilege and frequently told Dr Wright that he did not want him to go into privileged matters. These warnings did not seem to deter Dr Wright. On numerous occasions he sought to blame an aspect of a forgery allegation on his previous lawyers. As the Trial progressed, Bird & Bird asserted in correspondence that privilege had been waived by Dr Wright over a number of matters, but in the result, COPA did not require me to decide their allegations of waiver. Nonetheless, Dr Wright’s own legal team evidently concluded that privilege had been waived over certain matters and further disclosure and information was provided as a result, which I discuss below.
In some of his interventions, Lord Grabiner KC made reference to the fact that Dr Wright was a vulnerable witness. However, I did not get any impression that his ASD prevented Dr Wright from understanding the concept of privilege or that his discussions with his lawyers were privileged, and no point was made in submissions to that effect. In fact, COPA submitted that Dr Wright used privilege as a refuge – referring to something involving his lawyers (at the relevant time) as a way of closing off a particular enquiry. This was, as COPA submitted, an abuse of privilege but one which demonstrated that Dr Wright understood exactly what he was doing.
When giving his evidence orally, it seemed to me that Dr Wright was extremely well-prepared. My assessment is that he suffered from no disability in giving his evidence due to his ASD (Dr Wright himself made occasional reference to being an ‘Aspie’ i.e. a reference to Asperger’s syndrome). COPA had a large number of allegations of forgery and inauthenticity to put to him and many of those involved considerable detail. He seemed to be well on top of all the detail. He gave crisp answers when asked whether he saw what appeared on the face of a document (‘I do’) and, in the vast majority of cases, when it came to the key point, he gave answers which indicated he had already considered the point and prepared for it.
Dr Wright proved to be an extremely slippery witness. In many answers he included some slight qualification. He rarely gave a complete answer and this was deliberate – he was giving himself an ‘out’ for later. On occasion he was extremely pedantic. Initially I was inclined to give him some leeway due to his ASD, but his pedantry was not consistent. He was pedantic when it suited him and not when it didn’t.
I address most of Dr Wright’s evidence in connection with the alleged forgeries in the Appendix. However, in their written Closing, COPA drew my attention to three specific topics (which are not directly related to any of the allegations of forgery) on which they submit that Dr Wright was lying. I address these here, along with two other more general allegations.