THEY SURE KNOW HOW TO DO FORENSIC SCIENCE IN BRITAIN

Snappy dresser accepted as an expert



A man who said he was a forensic scientist and offered himself as an expert witness to solicitors had bought his masters' degree and doctorate over the internet, a court was told yesterday. Gene Morrison, 48, who lived in Hyde, Cheshire, called himself Dr Morrison and trailed the letters PhD and BSc after his name. In advertisements in the Solicitors Journal he boasted that he had been offering a first-class "objective and professional" service to the legal and insurance professions since 1977. But a jury at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester was told that Mr Morrison had no expertise in the fields and that his qualifications from "Rochville University" in America could be bought for $1,398 (709 pounds).

Neil Flewitt, QC, for the prosecution, said: "The services offered by the defendant were used by solicitors dealing with criminal, civil and family proceedings and also by insurance companies and private individuals. It is the prosecution case that the defendant frequently misrepresented his qualifications and his ability to deliver the services offered by his company, the Criminal & Forensic Investigations Bureau." Mr Morrison faces 23 counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception, obtaining property by deception, perverting the course of justice and perjury. The jury was told that he denied all but two counts.

Mr Flewitt said Mr Morrison was employed in 2002 by a firm of solicitors in Birmingham, which wanted to challenge evidence offered by a qualified expert that their client, Darren Knuckey, was an armed robber who had been picked out by CCTV at a petrol station. Younis Khan, a solicitor for Ahmed Solicitors, asked Mr Morrison if he had the technical expertise to carry out the job. Mr Morrison wrote to the firm subsequently claiming that he was an expert in facial mapping and quoting a price of 1,850. The job was given the approval of the Legal Services Commission.

Mr Flewitt said: "Although the defendant had indicated to Ahmed Solicitors that he was able to provide the report that they required, the reality was that he did not have the expertise to produce the report himself." He turned instead to Walter Baynes, the proprietor of a visual presentation company called Piglet Productions, to carry out the work. In an initial and then full report, Mr Morrison allegedly passed off Mr Baynes's work as his own. Mr Baynes charged 443 pounds for the work while Mr Morrison's bill was 998. In his report Mr Morrison, it was said, claimed falsely that he had academic qualifications in television imaging analysis from Salford College of Technology dating back to 1977 and had attended Home Office seminars.

Mr Flewitt said: "In presenting Walter Baynes's report as if it was his own, the defendant has misled Ahmed Solicitors into believing that they were in possession of an authoritative report in support of their client's defence. "In the event, no harm was done because the prosecution elected not to pursue the allegation of robbery against Mr Knuckey." The Knuckey case, said the barrister, was only one of a series of cases that he would outline to show how Mr Morrison operated his bogus business.

Mr Flewitt said that Mr Morrison had produced three certificates from Rochville University, but "Rochville University has no physical existence. There are no buildings and there is no teaching. All you neeed is access to the internet, a little imagination and, of course, enough money to pay for your chosen degrees."

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