Description: In a London housing case, England's High Court found that a barrister cited five reportedly fictitious cases and ordered her and the Haringey Law Centre, a legal aid charity, to pay £4,000 in wasted costs. Opposing counsel alleged AI use. The barrister denied using generative AI. The Divisional Court identified AI use as one of two possible explanations for the citations.
Editor Notes: 08/28/2024: Grounds dated that day contained five fictitious case citations. 02/04/2025: The council's solicitor flagged the five citations and asked for copies. 04/03/2025: The High Court ordered £4,000 in wasted costs and directed that its judgment be sent to professional regulators. 06/06/2025: The Divisional Court left AI use unresolved, declined to initiate contempt proceedings, and referred the barrister to her regulator. 11/08/2026: The incident ID was created.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Large language model developers developed an AI system deployed by Sarah Forey , Lawyers and Legal professionals, which harmed High Court of Justice (England and Wales) , London Borough of Haringey , Haringey Law Centre , Epistemic integrity , Judicial integrity , Courts and Parties to legal proceedings.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Large language models and AI-assisted legal research systems
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1813
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2025-06-06
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Andrew Ritchie post-incident response
Mr Justice Ritchie:
1. In this case I have before me an application for relief from sanctions dated 7 March 2023. What it says is that the London Borough of Haringey asks the court to grant:
“d) Relief from sanctions so that we can partici…
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A High Court judge who discovered that lawyers presented five fake case citations in their submissions has ordered that his judgment be sent to professional regulators.
Mr Justice Ritchie said solicitors and barristers involved in Ayinde, R…
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Victoria Sharp, Jeremy Johnson post-incident response
AIID editor's note
This judgment has been abridged to fit the AIID's 50,000-character limit. It retains paragraphs 1–9 and 32–82, including the court's treatment of both cases and its further steps. It omits paragraphs 10–31 on professiona…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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