Strange are the ways in which AI can escape and do harm; equally strange are the curious mechanisms whereby water can escape and do harm.
Water
Let’s start in the 19th century with water, and one of the most famous cases of all time, Rylands v. Fletcher. Fletcher owned a mine, Rylands (of The John
The following piece was also published here on 1 Crown Office Row’s Quarterly Medical Law Review.
AI is set to transform and disrupt the way in which healthcare is delivered. The Government’s 10-year health plan for England commits the NHS to becoming “the most AI-enabled healthcare system in the world”, supported by the delivery of
Join me and co-presenter and barrister Lucy McCann with public law specialist Jonathan Metzer as we take you on a journey over most significant cases that have been decided over the course of the year. This is Episode 232. Below are the citations of all the cases referred to in our discussion:
IA and
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Guidance for Judicial Office Holders (31 October 2025)
In the introduction, this Guidance note announces that “It updates and replaces the guidance document issued in April 2025”, which shows the speed at which AI is developing. It “sets out key risks and issues associated with using AI and some suggestions for
As I observed in Part I of this article, no UK court has yet issued a judgment in a libel or defamation claim concerning AI-generated content, but several cases and legal actions are emerging and the issue is widely anticipated to reach the courts soon. Proceedings are emerging in other jurisdictions in the US (see
In UK News
Medical experts have claimed that Lucy Letby did not murder any babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, concluding that the infants died of natural causes and negligent medical care. Having reviewed the medical evidence, a panel of 14 world-leading neonatologists have concluded that they “did not find any murders”. The case
Personal data is intimately connected to privacy (art 8, ECHR) but is regulated by specific data protection regimes, such as the UK GDPR. Attention-grabbing legal issues arising out of Big Data dominate the public discourse around data protection: can generative AI use datasets without breaching intellectual property laws; how should the NHS use its mass
In the UK
The Government has announced a new definition of extremism. Michael Gove, communities secretary, told ministers on Thursday that they should not interact with any groups labelled as extremist or that do not maintain ‘public confidence in government’. While the former definition encompassed ‘vocal or active opposition’, the new definition refers to the
Contax Partners inc BVI v Kuwait Finance House and others [2024] EWHC 436 (Comm)
Legal news abounds these days with stories of fabricated decisions and authorities generated by ChatGPT and similar AI mechanisms. But there’s nothing like a bit of old-fashioned human plagiarism to tickle the palates, and the full force of a judge’s fury