White, 'How to cross-examine forensic scientists: A guide for lawyers' (2014) 39 Australian Bar Review 174. 2 Like HTCE, the discussion of methods (e.g. validation and error rates) in this article is primarily, though not exclusively, directed toward the comparison and pattern recognition domains. Though, the remaining discussion has more general application to the forensic sciences and medicine.

I. INTRODUCTION THE Human Rights Act 1998 (''HRA''), which commenced operation on 2 October 2000, incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. Under section 6, courts should bring the common law into line with the Convention. Section 3 directs courts to construe legislation, as far as is possible, in a way compatible with the Convention. If this is not possible, the legislation will still be enforced, but with a declaration of incompatibility under section 4. This article is concerned with the compatibility of reverse burdens of proof with the Convention. Article 6(2) provides: ''Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.'' The potential incompatibility is clear. Rather than the prosecution proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt, 1 a reverse persuasive burden requires the defendant to prove his innocence on the balance of probabilities. Many decisions have considered this issue, including several of the House of Lords. 2 In Woolmington v. DPP 3 Lord Sankey famously described the prosecution's duty to prove guilt beyond doubt as the ''golden thread'' running throughout English criminal law. But this was made subject to the common law ''defence of insanity, and also to any statutory exception'', 4 and the catalogue of statutory exceptions is now considerable. 5 Under the HRA some reverse persuasive burdens 142

hat happens to a country under constant surveillance? The recent decision in Atkins v The Queen provides a partial answer. 1 The sheer availability of images seems to be driving decisions about their admissibility and use as identification evidence. Confronted with CCTV recordings associated with criminal activities English courts have been reluctant to restrict their admission or impose limitations on the scope or form of incriminating opinion derived from them. Although the Court of Appeal decision in Atkins v The Queen is concerned primarily with the way in which an opinion derived from CCTV images was expressed, the decision exposes jurisprudential weakness and continuing problems with photo comparison and facial-mapping evidence.

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