Speaking clock costs police £35,000

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Derek

Prove the mobile or computer was in sync at the time, sometimes years in the past.

It's a bit of a waste but to avoid a slippery defence agent trying to muddy the waters it's worthwhile.

After all, if some defence lawyer could argue that if the officer concerned couldn't even tell the time (which may well be how they present this), they could argue that he or she had done something else, potientially more serious, wrong.

[m8internet]

Sounds very similar to an issue I had whilst investigating and reporting a fraud at a large superstore
All the tills use the same time, no problem there
However the CCTV system was not synchronised to the times on the tills
This was corrected
However this time had not been synchronised to the "speaking clock"
The case was thrown out, even though the times on the CCTV footage and tills matched

Arrangements then had to be made (at the superstores cost) for two police officers to attend all the companies superstores in that area, and confirm all three times matched

With respect to criminal cases it is usually a case that the officers personal watch has to be synchronised to the speaking clock
Equally, why should the officer pay for that from home, so they perform this task at work

[cookie_365]

So can we safely assume that the journo called the Met's press office, got told precisely what Derek said, realised the whole thing was perfectly reasonable, and had to make a choice:

1. Throw away the 'story' on the basis that it wasn't a story, or
2. Carry on and submit it, making sure to only quote the general explanation without any examples, so it still looks fishy?

Think of all the pages in the Metro and Evening Standard that need filling up