The expert evidence on forensic document analysis
Mr Patrick Madden was the principal expert witness called by COPA on matters of forensic document analysis.
Mr Madden made six expert reports for this Trial:
Madden1 was a very substantial report (amounting with Appendices to around 970 pages) served on 1 September 2023. It addressed Dr Wright’s initial list of 107 Reliance Documents.
Madden2 (17 November 2023) was supposed to be his report in reply to Dr Placks’ report of 23 October 2023 (which focussed on the 48 Reliance Documents analysed in Madden1, and certain extra MYOB files, but not other documents analysed in Madden1). As Mr Madden says, he was provided with a significant amount of new documents when he was preparing it and he analysed these.
Madden3 (7 December 2023) contained his preliminary analysis of certain aspects of the 97 Additional Documents, the BDO Image and the question of whether the Bitcoin White Paper was created using LaTeX or not. This was done for the purposes of the PTR. He detected that the BDO Image had been manipulated, which included the use of clock manipulation and metadata editing. He observed that the vast majority of the 97 documents were in formats with little or no metadata for forensic analysis, and made the point very clearly that any proper analysis would require access to a forensic image of the drive from which the BDO Image was taken. Of the minority of files which provided information which could be analysed forensically, he found that several bore strong indications of metadata tampering and backdating.
Madden4 (18 January 2024) contained a much fuller analysis of the 97 Documents and the BDO Drive.
Madden5 (18 February 2024, i.e. served in the middle of the Trial) addressed the new documents which I permitted Dr Wright to adduce at the start of the Trial, as well as some of the opinion evidence in Wright 11.
Madden6 (28 February 2024, served towards the end of the evidence in the Trial) addressed the MYOB Ontier email.
Mr Madden’s evidence underpins almost all of COPA’s allegations of forgery. In their Closing Submissions, Counsel for Dr Wright attacked Mr Madden’s evidence, his qualifications and his independence. These were developed in Lord Grabiner KC’s oral closing and led to his submission, (which he accepted was a fairly drastic conclusion) that the safest course for me to take would be to disregard Mr Madden’s evidence ‘because of the serious doubts about his independence’.
This was a bold submission to make in view of the fact that Dr Wright’s experts (Dr Placks & Mr Lynch) had agreed with most of Mr Madden’s findings in his first to fourth reports, but it was at least consistent with the position taken in cross-examination by Dr Wright where he dismissed all the expert evidence on the basis that none of the experts were properly qualified, the sub-text being that only Dr Wright was.
I deal with all the attacks on Mr Madden and his evidence below.
The principal expert relied on by Dr Wright was Dr Simon Placks, at least until Dr Wright decided to dispense with his evidence:
His first report (served on 23 October 2023) was limited to responding to Mr Madden’s analysis of the 48 Reliance Documents in Madden1.
Following without prejudice discussions, he and Mr Madden agreed a very helpful Joint Statement (served 8 December 2023).
On 18 January 2024, Dr Placks served his Second Report.
On 22 January 2024, he and Mr Madden agreed their Second Joint Statement.
Mr Spencer Lynch was brought in to address the Additional Documents, the Samsung Drive and the BDO Image. He served his report on 18 January 2024 and agreed a Joint Statement with Mr Madden which was served on 22 January 2024.