‘Deepfake’ audio was used in a custody battle to try and portray a father as threatening, a family lawyer has revealed, as he warned that doctored evidence is being submitted to courts.

Byron James, a family lawyer and partner at international law firm, Expatriate Law, said that voice forging software was used to create a fake recording of his client threatening another party to a dispute over their children.

In what is believed to be the first reported case of its kind in UK courts, Mr James said: “It is now possible, with sufficient content, to create an audio or video file of anyone saying anything.”

Deepfakes use machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to create highly sophisticated and plausible fake footage. The technology is available to anyone, with step-by-step guides on the internet.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr James said that while PDF and paper documents are relatively “easy” to manipulate, he warned other legal experts of the worrying threat that more technological evidence is also being tampered with and submitted to courts as evidence.