From a Lawnmower to the North Sea
When Missing Evidence Leads to Adverse Inferences in Court
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July 14, 2025
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This article first appeared on Lawyers Weekly on 19 May, 2025. The full article is available at: https://www.lawyersweekly.com.au/biglaw/42109-from-a-lawnmower-to-the-north-sea-when-missing-evidence-leads-to-adverse-inferences-in-court
What do an ex-employee of an Australian trucking insurer and an English footballer’s wife have in common? Both were involved in cases where critical evidence conveniently went missing just as the courts requested it. A former employee at AEI Insurance Broking Group, accused of client solicitation, claimed two phones - potentially holding key SMS and call logs - were destroyed, one water-damaged and the other run over by a lawnmower. Forensic examination of a third phone showed call logs had been reset and messages deleted during a crucial period. Meanwhile, in the 2022 “Wagatha Christie” defamation trial, Rebekah Vardy claimed vital WhatsApp messages with her agent were lost during transfer to her lawyer, while her agent said her phone was accidentally dropped into the North Sea.
In both cases, judges drew adverse inferences from the missing evidence, underscoring how destruction or tampering—whether deliberate or accidental—can have serious legal consequences. In this article published in Lawyers Weekly, Michael Khoury discusses how these cases illustrate the growing interplay between legal proceedings and digital forensics, highlighting both the risks of evidence loss and the opportunities technology offers to recover and analyse electronic information.
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July 14, 2025
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