Wrongly convicted surgeon wants AI used in criminal trials

Dr David Sellu questioned Britain’s justice system - "stuck in its old ways" - and whether its current use of juries could be improved.

He was speaking at the launch of a report by justice charity Appeal, linking majority jury verdicts to miscarriages of justice.

Dr Sellu was convicted by a majority of 10:2 in 2013 after one of his patients died following surgery at a private hospital in Harrow.

His conviction was later overturned by the Court of Appeal, which found the jury had been given incorrect legal instructions, and he was cleared of professional misconduct.

However, he had already spent 15 months behind bars.

Dr David Sellu speaks at the launch of Appeal's report on majority verdicts. In front of him are the report's co-author Naima Sakande and two miscarriage of justice victims, Winston Trew and Andrew Malkinson (Image: Charles Thomson)

“I served my sentence in some of the most brutal prisons in this country,” he said.

“After that bruising experience, having lost my profession for something I didn’t do, the whole of the legal system was brought into focus in my mind. There were a number of things that disturbed me hugely.”

Dr Sellu is among more than 50 cases identified by Appeal’s Naima Sakande and Nisha Waller where some jurors’ doubts were overruled by a majority, only for the defendant to be exonerated later.

Their report asserts that majority verdicts were introduced in 1967 partly for “explicit racist and classist” reasons.

Some in power opposed a rule change that meant anyone on the electoral roll could serve on a jury.

Naima Sakande and Nisha Waller spent two years researching their report, which calls for the abolition of majority verdicts (Image: Charles Thomson)

“Many were concerned that including the so-called ‘labouring classes’ and the ‘coloureds’ on juries would taint the calibre of juries due to their perceived lack of intelligence,” said Ms Waller.

“New West Indian Commonwealth migrants and women were also the targets of assumed intellectual incapabilities.”

One judge said that “some West Indian bus conductor” shouldn’t be sitting on a fraud jury, while an MP said English “noblemen” should not be tried by “common clay”.

Some MPs called for majority verdicts as a mitigation.

Appeal is now calling for them to be abolished, asking how a system which supposedly demands proof beyond reasonable doubt can then dismiss the doubts of up to a sixth of a jury.

“We’re stuck with a system set up in 1967 that was created on archaic ideology,” said Matt Foot, Appeal’s co-director and one of the lawyers from Dr Sellu’s appeal.

The Ministry of Justice said it was considering Appeal’s report but had no current plans to halt the use of majority verdicts.

Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape DNA later proved he hadn't committed, was also a speaker at the event. He called for majority verdicts to be scrapped (Image: Charles Thomson)

Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for rape before being exonerated by DNA, was also convicted by 10:2.

He too spoke at the event at City Law School, Islington, on Wednesday, May 8.

“Those two people have heard all the evidence and they’re not convinced,” said Mr Malkinson.

“That’s 17% of the jury, so you’ve only got 83% at the most who are for the conviction. That’s not good enough for a life sentence.”

Dr Sellu told the audience: “You in the law are still stuck in your old ways. You wear your funny hats and gowns. You still speak in funny languages.

“My own gripe is really to do with the whole of the jury system. We’ve got to ask questions. Does it work? Can it be improved? Are there alternatives?

Dr Sellu said that while medicine embraces modern science and technology, the legal system is still stuck in its old ways (Image: Charles Thomson)

“The sorts of things jurors are told to do – ‘put your emotions aside’ – well, that’s not humanly possible.

“Some other things that were said at my own trial were, ‘Put yourself in David Sellu’s position and imagine what he knew or should have known’.

“I ask, how can 12 people who have never made life-and-death decisions, like I had to every day, put themselves in my position and imagine what I knew or should have known?”

He suggested the law could embrace modern science and technology like medicine has, perhaps using AI.

“It’s a verdict that will be based on facts,” he said. “It takes away all the emotion.”

But he stressed that human involvement was still necessary, pointing out that doctors assisted by AI detect breast cancer more effectively than either doctors or AI working separately.

“AI is not really the be all and end all,” he said. “It’s merely a tool, like every other that we use in making decisions.”