Former choirboy with motor neurone disease was able to testify by using Stephen Hawking-style eye-tracking equipment

A former church chorister rendered immobile by motor neurone disease has been helped to fulfil his dying wish – to give courtroom evidence against his abuser using eye-tracking technology.

In what is believed to be the first time Eyegaze equipment has been used for cross-examination in a British crown court, a retired Anglican vicar has been convicted of three counts of indecent assault dating back to the 1970s.

The victim, who was a young boy when the offences occurred, recorded his evidence and was then questioned by lawyers at Bournemouth crown court via video link as he lay in a hospice bed in Streatham, south London. He was helped by an intermediary provided by the Ministry of Justice.



The eye-tracking technology is similar to the screen used by Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking to communicate.

The 47-year-old former chorister, who has not been identified, used the technology to recall the attacks during his childhood.

Although he achieved his aim of getting justice, the man did not live to hear the outcome of the case. A Metropolitan police officer was sent to Streatham to deliver news of the guilty verdict, but his errand was cancelled before he could reach the hospice after the force was informed that the victim had just died.

Cyril Rowe, now 78, was a vicar at St Matthias Anglican church in Stoke Newington, London, where the boy was in the choir. Rowe, now living in Bournemouth, was found guilty last Wednesday and is due to be sentenced on 10 March.

The offences were reported to police in August 2015 and Rowe was charged in September 2016. All the indecent assaults were committed against one victim between 1979 and 1981. The unnamed chorister was between nine and 11 years old at the time.

A Met statement confirmed that the trial had finished. “The victim gave evidence at court via a link from a hospice in Streatham,” a spokesman said. “He suffered from motor neurone disease, and, by blinking his eyes, he was able to ‘speak’ to the court via eye-tracking technology.

“The victim died, aged 47, on the same day that the guilty verdict was returned. He never heard that Rowe had been convicted.”

The pioneering criminologist Dame Joyce Plotnikoff, who helps vulnerable witnesses and defendants give evidence in court, supports Intermediaries for Justice.

She told the Guardian: “The court tested this witness’s evidence through use of technology and the involvement of an independent intermediary who assessed his ability to communicate and read out his answers. Even in these straitened times, the system can provide access to justice to those with communication needs.”

A CPS spokesperson said: “Mobility or health issues need not be a barrier to witnesses giving their evidence in court. The CPS will always do everything we can to ensure victims and witnesses can give their best evidence, including using the latest technology.”