The Pinocchio Brief

by Silver Abi

  “And did you develop the software yourself?”

  “No. I’m not a developer. I stumbled across it some years back, when I was looking for a new business venture. I bought the rights from the original developers and quite a lot of research had already been done at the time. The Government gave me a grant, I completed more research and then presented the product to the Ministry of Justice. They liked what they saw and, well, things moved quickly.”

  Judith reflected for a moment on his words. Everything he had said so far was accurate.

  “So, now, you no longer have any involvement in the research or the development side of the product?”

  “That’s right. The company employs technicians and researchers; I receive regular reports. I don’t do the work myself any more.”

  “And you still own shares?”

  “A majority shareholding, yes.”

  “Which is worth?”

  “Oh, it varies. Somewhere between zero and £60 million, depending on who you believe.”

  “Your Honour, I hardly see how any of this is relevant.” Mr Arkwright, who had been making notes assiduously so far, rose to his feet and hooked his thumbs into the loops of his gown, almost succeeding on drowning out the chattering which had broken out when Greg Winter pronounced the very large figure for the value of his company. Even Judith had uttered an obscenity, in the confines of her head, when she heard him.

  “I disagree, Mr Arkwright. The defence is entitled to test the expertise of the expert, as long as she does not go on too long.”

  “Yes, Your Honour. I’m grateful.”

  Mr Arkwright simpered, lowering himself slowly into his seat and throwing a sidelong, penetrating glance at Judith.

  Judith looked across at Ray. He was sitting quietly, as usual, his hands cuffed, his head bowed, perfectly still. Despite her considerable anger, she now believed him innocent and she had to do what she could to protect him.

  There had been nothing improper about her original application to exclude Pinocchio from the trial, Judith told herself; she had been open and honest about her reasons and her historic knowledge of Pinocchio had not played a part in that decision. But now she was poised to question Greg, she felt less secure. She could only do this because of the work she had undertaken with him. And of course, Greg might shop her, might tell the world of her involvement. Then, despite her certainty that she was operating with integrity, people were bound to be critical.

  She allowed her eyes to travel over Greg’s face. He stood before her, composed and self-assured, without any flicker of recognition.

  “Your Honour, Dr Winter has confirmed that he both inherited research which he analysed and then carried out his own research into the product. I can’t think of a more appropriate person to assist this court, at this time. Moving on then to the meatier questions. Dr Winter, in a lecture you gave at University College London some six or seven years ago, I can provide you with more details if you wish, you explained that Pinocchio was a superior product to the traditional polygraph for a number of reasons. Can you tell the court what they were?”

  “Yes. I remember that lecture very well for more than one reason. I don’t need more details.” Dr Winter paused and allowed himself the briefest of smiles. Judith stiffened. “The reasons are well known; the polygraph is intrusive, you need someone to operate it and the main reason is unreliability. It was always possible to train yourself to beat the polygraph.”

  “And, in your expert opinion, these are not features of this software?”

  “That’s right. As you can see, there’s no need for staff or wires to operate it and no one can beat it.”

  “No one can beat it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How can you be so confident that no one can beat it?”

  “Well, the polygraph worked by measuring heart rate and sweating; physical characteristics, which people could and can learn to control. The Pinocchio software works by monitoring minute changes in facial muscles, which people don’t know they’re making and are completely unable to control.”

  “What about other movements, body movements?”

  “Yes. Pinocchio does also monitor body movements; hands, arms, shoulders, the turn of the head; but what you have been using here, it’s refined to work on the face only. It’s easier to administer.”

  “Are you aware that there are a number of websites, available free on the internet, with tips on how to beat Pinocchio?”

  “Yes. My company monitors them and whenever someone thinks they have the key we invite them in to show us what they have.”

  “And why is that?”

  “We’re proud of our product but we don’t want to be ostriches; if someone really does find a glitch, then we want to be able to fix it. Look, Pinocchio has saved the UK government £20 million this year alone in taxpayers’ money. That is money which, instead of going into the courts, has been channelled into hospitals and schools. The real saving is over the next five to 10 years, estimated at £2 billion. But the government can only continue to use the software if it trusts the technology.”

  “I see. All very laudable corporate responsibility.”

  “You don’t seem so certain, Miss Burton?”

  A laugh from the public gallery.

  Judge Blake coughed loudly and shuffled his papers.

  “Well perhaps I should explain my difficulty to you, Dr Winter,” Judith continued unruffled, “and invite you to provide your expert opinion. That is why you are here after all.”

  “Yes, certainly. Fire away.” His glib answer was a deliberate nod to the old Greg and Judith knew it.

  “Dr Winter. Have you seen the analysis carried out by your product of Raymond Maynard’s evidence given to this court yesterday?”

  “Yes. I have.”

  “The first question I asked the accused was his name. And he answered ‘Raymond James Maynard’.”

  “Yes.”

  “What did Pinocchio say about that answer? Usher, please would you provide Dr Winter with his own copy of the results. For the rest of us, I will project them up on the screen behind Dr Winter’s head. Yes, thank you, Dr Winter, once you have had a chance to take a look.”

  “Well, it says that Maynard is lying.”

  “How is that lie supported?”

  “To answer that question, you have to allow me to review the software report.”

  “The software report?”

  “Yes.”

  The Judge leaned forward with considerable interest. “Dr Winter, can you explain to me precisely what that is please.”

  Dr Winter gave his most obliging smile. “Certainly. Pinocchio is programmed to recognise certain movements as associated with telling the truth and others with lying. Each time Pinocchio conducts an assessment, we have an intermediate report produced behind the scenes, linking the movements the suspect made with the judgement of ‘truth’ or ‘lie’. We don’t bother showing you that intermediate report, but it exists if you want to understand how Pinocchio reached his judgement.”

  He allowed his smile, this time, to encompass Judith. This part of the process had, after all, been her idea.

  “So where is that report?”

  “Your computer technician could easily download it here in the courtroom but I understood from Mr Arkwright that he was going to have some copies printed off in advance, in case you were interested in seeing them.”

  “Well, if Mr Arkwright has gone to the trouble of printing out this intermediate report it seems we should take advantage of his foresight and review it,” Judge Blake declared.

  The usher handed a copy of a hefty wedge of paper to Dr Winter, a second to the judge and a third to Judith. Judith looked around again for Constance, who remained absent, before flicking through the first two pages of the printout.

  “Thank you, Your Honour. Dr Winter, when Raymond Maynard gave his name, what does this report say he did, which rendered his answer untruthful?”

  “Pinocchio says tha
t he twitched a muscle in his right eyebrow, twice in close succession.”

  “Can you tell us the name of that muscle?”

  “Yes, it’s a rather long one, I’m afraid. It’s called ‘corrugator supercilii’.”

  “And can you show us how it might move?”

  “I can describe it; it’s hard to show you. It is one of the muscles that contracts when we frown. But the movement Mr Maynard would’ve made was tiny. If you play back the film at normal speed, you are unlikely to be able to see it.”

  “I see. And that is a recognised sign of a lie, is it?”

  “Yes. The software is told to pick up that particular movement and classify it as a lie.”

  “But Dr Winter, to state the obvious, that is my client’s name. I have his birth certificate here which his mother has kindly provided to us. And it’s the name he was known by at school and by his friends.”

  “Yes. I see that.”

  “So perhaps Pinocchio is wrong.”

  “No. Pinocchio is never wrong.”

  “Dr Winter. Can I let you into a secret? I don’t believe in ‘never’. So I’ll ask you again. Has Pinocchio made a mistake?”

  Dr Winter looked across at Raymond and then at Judge Blake.

  “The software has been trialled. This movement indicates a lie in all the volunteers we tested. It is just possible that, for this particular boy, it did not. A better explanation, consistent with the product operating successfully, is that, for some inexplicable reason, the boy himself did not believe his own answer. That does not mean that Pinocchio is flawed.”

  “Oh, come on, Dr Winter. That’s a very technical answer, but you really expect us to believe that my client doesn’t know his own name?”

  “Miss Burton. That’s not what Dr Winter said,” Judge Blake rebuked her gently.

  “Your Honour, I stand corrected. But we know, Dr Winter, don’t we, that it wasn’t just this particular movement which fooled Pinocchio. Pinocchio got things wrong for my client every time.”

  “I don’t accept that.”

  “Really? The name of his sister, the boys in his class. Pinocchio said he lied about those things too when, clearly, he did not. Would you have us believe that for all those questions he did not believe his own answer?”

  Greg cleared his throat and Judith pressed home her advantage.

  “Let’s move on. Dr Winter, you mentioned testing. I understand that included the use of volunteers to try to beat the product. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “In your tests, when you invited volunteers to tell lies to you, what percentage of their answers were, in fact, identified as lies?”

  “Usually about 35%.”

  “So for 65% of the time they were telling the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do any tests where the subject was instructed to lie to every question?”

  “Those tests were carried out, yes.”

  “And what did you find then?”

  “They couldn’t do it. The highest percentage recorded was 70% lies, although this was when firing questions at the volunteers, with little time to consider an answer.”

  “I see. So even your most willing and experienced ‘volunteers’ could only achieve 70% lies.”

  “Yes, that’s right. But it’s an academic point you’re making, given that you’re trying to show the court that Mr Maynard was telling the truth. I don’t see how it’s relevant here.”

  “Can you turn to the end of Mr Maynard’s evidence? Can you tell the court what percentage of my client’s answers were considered untrue by Pinocchio?”

  “I don’t need to look. It was all of them.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean my client, a 16-year-old boy, on trial for this terrible crime, achieved 100% lies when even your best volunteer, pitting his wits against Pinocchio time and again, could only manage 70%.”

  “Again, I don’t understand what you’re asking me, Miss Burton. Presumably, you want the court to believe that your client was telling the truth. So, why are you asking me about people who deliberately lied?”

  Judith paused for a moment. She did not need to answer this question. She had done sufficient so far to pave the way for what was coming next.

  “Dr Winter, am I right that your paper entitled ‘Pinocchio, Finding Truth in Crime’, published five years ago, concerned an analysis you did of known criminals, most from the USA, giving their evidence?”

  “Yes.”

  “Essentially, you watched testimony they gave in court in their respective trials and in TV interviews before or after trial, including celebrities accused of serious crimes, like OJ Simpson.”

  “Yes.”

  “What percentage of their answers were lies?”

  “I can’t be sure; I think 40-50%. But, Miss Burton, it doesn’t matter if these people lie when they are asked what colour shirt they are wearing; the point is that they lie on the vital matters, the facts of the crime.”

  “Absolutely. I absolutely agree. And Mr Arkwright will make much of this. He will have you say that Maynard lied when he was asked if he killed Mr Davis.”

  “Yes. And that is the key.”

  “But how can any of us rely on your, I apologise, on this machine, if it is wrong on the mundane questions? If Raymond Maynard sends out the wrong or rather misleading signals with his face or body when he tells us his name, so he must also send out misleading signals when asked if he murdered Mr Davis, his trusted form teacher and house master. Do you have any explanation of this apparent dichotomy or must you accept the product is flawed?”

  “No. The product is not flawed, like I said earlier. But I also accept that we’ve never seen results like this before.”

  “Well, Dr Winter, perhaps I can point you to the real answer, the answer which will exonerate my client and which will prove that your product, albeit one of considerable value, is not infallible. It relates to a word which has become synonymous with political correctness in recent years but it is a word which encapsulates the limitations of products like yours.” Judith took a deep breath and noticed with considerable irritation that Greg appeared to be smiling at her again.

  “‘Diversity’, Dr Winter. That’s the word I am thinking of.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did you know that a survey conducted last year concluded that almost 2% of the UK population suffers from some form of autism?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “Were any tests of Pinocchio conducted on volunteers known to have autism?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know that 12% of the general population is dyslexic, and more than 15% of the prison population?”

  “No.”

  “Were any tests conducted on dyslexic volunteers?”

  “No.”

  “People with dyspraxia?”

  “No.”

  “OCD?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?”

  “No.”

  “Depression?”

  “No.”

  “Hm, that affects 5% of under-18s and up to 12% of the general population. Were tests conducted on individuals with bipolar disorder?”

  “No. But you are missing the point. We tested a lot of people, and given those statistics you are quoting, some of them would have had those conditions you mention, depression or OCD. Pinocchio still assessed them all correctly.”

  “But you never asked?”

  “No.”

  “So there is no corroborative evidence that Pinocchio was tested on people with any of these conditions and, if so, how it affected the response.”

  “No.”

  “How were the subjects selected?”

  “Before my involvement, notices were placed on the internet with links from social media sites. In universities across the UK there were notices, and certain large companies which operated particularly high-level social resp
onsibility programmes were asked to allow their employees to join in.”

  “And after your involvement?”

  “I carried out studies from two London universities, UCL and LSE, and also processed thousands of hours of footage from known criminals giving evidence and from police interviews which took place in the UK.”

  “Just sticking with the volunteers. What was the sample size?”

  “Before me, I believe around 100 people were tested. From the two universities, I tested 52 more people.”

  “So, around 150 people.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you happen to know, when say GlaxoSmithKline releases a new drug, how many people it has tested before the release, leaving out the scores of animals who might have also been involved in the trials – I am not suggesting we could have taken a short cut here with animal substitutes.”

  “I could guess at 5,000, but you are not counting all the interviews we assessed. We reviewed almost 1,000 further cases successfully, using recorded police interviews.”

  “Not bad – the answer for GSK is 15,000. Were any of the people you tested under 18?”

  “No.”

  “What proportion of those tested were female?”

  “15%.”

  “I am sorry; did you say 50%?”

  “15%.”

  A gasp from the public gallery.

  “Why so low?”

  A shrug. “I suppose women didn’t want to do the trial; it was voluntary. And there are far fewer women charged with serious offences.”

  “Did any of the people you tested suffer from any physical disabilities?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  “Paralysis, perhaps, including of the facial muscles.”

  “No.”

  “What about any use of Botox? There were over 2 million Botox treatments in the UK last year.”

  “Oh, now this is becoming ridiculous, Your Honour.” Mr Arkwright was shaking with indignation. “There is no evidence or even hint that the accused has any disability, either mental or physical, or has had plastic surgery. And Your Honour is aware that there is a specific exclusion to use of Pinocchio for individuals with any kind of impairment of how the face moves. Miss Burton’s questions are largely irrelevant.” Mr Arkwright was beginning to regret having called this witness in to court.