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UK Police Told To Use Wikipedia When Preparing For Court 180

Posted by Soulskill
from the citation-needed dept.
Half-pint HAL tips news of UK prosecution lawyers who are instructing police to study information on Wikipedia when preparing to give expert testimony in court. "Mike Finn, a weaponry specialist and expert witness in more than 100 cases, told industry magazine Police Review: 'There was one case in a Midlands force where police officers asked me to write a report about a martial art weapon. The material they gave me had been printed out from Wikipedia. The officer in charge told me he was advised by the CPS to use the website to find out about the weapon and he was about to present it in court. I looked at the information and some of it had substance and some of it was completely made up.' Mr. Finn, a former Metropolitan Police and City of London officer and Home Office adviser, added that he has heard of at least three other cases where officers from around the country have been advised by the CPS to look up evidence on Wikipedia."
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UK Police Told To Use Wikipedia When Preparing For Court More

UK Police Told To Use Wikipedia When Preparing For Court

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  • CPS? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by arth1 (260657) on Saturday July 04 2009, @12:24AM (#28577675) Homepage Journal

    Is CPS such a common abbreviation that every reader is expected to know what it stands for?

  • Re:They would be better off using snopes.com. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Strilanc (1077197) on Saturday July 04 2009, @01:31AM (#28577979)

    Snopes posted a couple of purposefully incorrect things once, in order to prove a point about not blindly trusting people. The fake stories backfired (or worked, depending on your view) and became real urban legends. Hilarious.

  • Surprising? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by frozentier (1542099) on Saturday July 04 2009, @01:46AM (#28578053)
    Considering the fact that lawyers use MySpace and facebook to gather evidence, why should this be a surprise? I think Wikipedia is generally a good source for facts. However, I think anyone who uses the internet AT ALL for important facts is very foolish. I could get a personalized URL, make up a page full of total nonsense, and there's going to be someone out there citing it as gospel, so to speak. First step in getting facts you can depend on: Get off the internet and crack open a book. Stop being LAZY, because looking up stuff on the internet is EASY.

  • I don't see what the big deal is (Score:3, Interesting)

    by portforward (313061) on Saturday July 04 2009, @02:07AM (#28578147)

    There is lots of very useful information on the internet. Martial Arts weapons are a perfectly good example of finding high-quality, even admissable evidence. There is a Youtube series devoted for researching just such a topic. Feel free to search for "Ask a Ninja".

  • Re:what makes this a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by hairyfeet (841228) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday July 04 2009, @02:16AM (#28578187) Journal

    I'll probably get modded down for this, but what the hell. the problem is they are using Wikipedia, which if you've ever read some of the snarky back stabbing BS their mods pull behind the scenes you would know is less like an encyclopedia and more like a little club that for some reason everybody trusts.

    Sure if the article you are looking for is on some boring crap that the mods won't give a fart about one way or the other it will probably be fine. But if a mod there decides he like his 'facts" better than yours even though you have 1000 references to his some webpage he found yours will get deleted so fast it will make your head swim. And wasn't there a mod kicked off not too long ago for making CoS links all 'yay scientology!' because he was getting paid?

    Remember this is some poor guy's life we are talking about here, so look it up in an actual book, not on something like Wikipedia. I really don't think asking them to open an actual book is too much to ask, do you?

  • Re:Wikipedia as a source of truth? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by houstonbofh (602064) on Saturday July 04 2009, @03:13AM (#28578389)
    First, I am not disagreeing with you. I am just pointing out that we are having a discussion on an article most of us have not read. That is the problem. How many times are goofy comments here responded to with "Read the article?" It used to be that facts were born out by research, and now it is by consensus. (Like "The world is flat...") And the Wikipedia issue is just more of this in another place. Read the wiki, and do not check the sources...

    And no I did not read the article. It was locked behind a fee. It does sound interesting, however.

  • Re:Heh... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tg123 (1409503) on Saturday July 04 2009, @03:57AM (#28578567)

    Hey who modded this as funny it should be insightful.

    Police often exaggerate in court.

    http://oklahomacriminaldefense.blogspot.com/2008/08/police-lying-or-testilying-and.html [blogspot.com]

    Wish I had mod points ..................

  • Re:All sources should be suspect (Score:5, Interesting)

    by themeparkphoto (1049810) on Saturday July 04 2009, @10:33AM (#28580003)
    Here's my Wikipedia story: Several years ago, while reading the entry for my Alma Mater, I decided to add my name to the list of notable alumni. (I'm not notable.) About a year later, when I decided to google my name and was shocked to see myself at my University's website on a page they had enumerating their famous alumni! That's right--my college did its research on Wikipedia. I decided to write my own wikipedia entry page--which stuck!--and among other references linked back to my University's page showing that I was a notable alumni. (I've written a number of books, so I was able to have a number of references that looked legit enough that my page wasn't deleted.) Last year, while reading the glossy brochure for my University, there was my name on a page that talked about all the 'famous' people that had graduated there. My little Wikipedia vandalism had come full circle and became the truth! I do not trust Wikipedia, and use this as an example to prove how bad an idea it is.

  • Re:Citations are there for a reason (Score:3, Interesting)

    by selven (1556643) on Saturday July 04 2009, @12:16PM (#28580715)
    No, you wait for the news to copy from your altered article and use that for citations.

This fortune is false.