John Holden is an associate director at forensic accountants Smith & Williamson.
He is responsible for managing and developing the firm’s forensic technology service. Your Witness editor Chris Wilson met him and his colleague, forensic accounting expert Graham Hain, to talk about this growing area of expertise and other disciplines.
THE LIVES of people who have a disability are often vastly improved by the adaptations and changes that can be made in their environment.
In the Information Age it is not surprising to find that computers and other technologies are at the heart of a lot of the resources available. The term ‘assistive technology’ has come to describe the combination of computer hardware, software and other modified equipment that has developed to meet the almost infinite range of needs faced by disabled people.
ELECTRONIC assisting technology (EAT) is a field which has been growing rapidly over recent years.
Included in this is augmented and alternative communication (AAC), which encompasses a wide range of measures from simple paper selection boards to the latest high-tech computer-based voice output communication aids, VOCAs.
OUR SOCIETY is heavily dependent on technology and so it is inevitable that litigation will arise in which technology is involved. On the other hand, technology is only one out of the great variety of subjects with which the legal system has to deal.
The police find themselves in a similar position, where the range of topics an officer has to study leaves little time for technical matters. Not much technology is needed to arrest a football hooligan, whereas measuring the speed of cars, for example, is a different matter.
IN MY 10 years experience of working alongside solicitors, the police and the CPS as an expert witness, I have worked on a fascinating variety of criminal and civil cases – from murder and rape cases through child care proceedings to ‘best interest’ cases in the High Court.
Also throughout that time I have encountered an equally fascinating variety of lawyers who have presented me with some extraordinary challenges in terms of the working relationship between the instructing party and the expert.
