Lewes Crown Court, England: a rape trial was stayed part-way through and the jury discharged after documents on the complainant's phone, which the complainant said came from putting material into AI to prepare for court, were treated as witness coaching; the Court of Appeal reversed the stay on 4 June 2026 and ordered a retrial

According to the Court of Appeal judgment, the complainant was the only prosecution witness. After being challenged in cross-examination about where they had been at a particular time, the complainant went home, produced screenshots from cloud storage and brought them to court the next day. When the prosecution applied to recall the complainant, the defence asked for a full download of the phone; the Recorder ordered it and the trial was adjourned for some days. The download revealed two documents: a summary of what the complainant recalled of the night, followed by 24 questions in the form of a cross-examination with suggested answers, under headings including 'On what happened that night', 'On Consent and Capacity', 'On Physical Evidence' and 'On Your Behaviour After'. The documents open with a check-in addressed to the complainant ('Please make sure someone is with you or available to you today') and a promise to show 'how strong and consistent your account actually is'. The complainant said the material came from putting things into AI; the defence did not accept that it was AI-generated rather than a communication from a real person, and the appeal proceeded on the basis that it was generated by AI in response to the complainant's prompts, which the court did not see. The defence applied to stay the proceedings on the ground that no cross-examination could separate the complainant's own evidence from someone else's. Prosecuting counsel at trial appeared to concede the point and the Recorder, holding that the documents showed coaching 'whether or not done by AI or someone else', stayed the proceedings. The Court of Appeal found that the complainant's evidence-in-chief, a pre-recorded interview given some years earlier, was uncontaminated, that everything the AI 'coach' provided was recorded and could be put before a jury, and that the Recorder erred. It ordered a retrial. It also expressed concern at the 'broad and intrusive' order to download the whole phone; that order was made before the documents were found, against a background of concern about disclosure, and is not attributed to the AI use.

The complainant's rape trial was stayed part-way through and the jury discharged because documents the complainant said came from AI preparation were treated as witness coaching; the Court of Appeal reversed the stay and ordered a retrial of allegations it described as 'now of some age' (R v FGD [2026] EWCA Crim 918).

The Recorder stayed the proceedings as an abuse of process part-way through the trial; the jury was discharged when the prosecution gave notice of appeal under section 58 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. On 4 June 2026 the Court of Appeal (Lady Justice May, Mr Justice Griffiths and HHJ Picton) gave leave, allowed the appeal, reversed the ruling and directed that the case be listed before the Resident Judge within two weeks, with the retrial listed at the earliest opportunity; the defendant's unconditional bail continued. The court suggested that the National Police Chiefs' Council, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee consider how to regulate the use of AI in criminal proceedings. The judgment was reported by the Law Society Gazette on 28 July 2026 and then widely. The outcome of the retrial is not known.