It’s not just English courts that are struggling with the challenges of new technology. An appeals court in Florida has ordered the retrial of a man convicted of murder - because a computer virus had erased the only transcript of the original trial.

According to the Miami Herald, the court had no choice but to throw out the 2009 conviction and life sentence of Randy Chaviano because hardly any transcripts of the trial proceedings survived.

It turned out that a court stenographer had run out of paper and relied on a digital recording, which she had transferred to her home computer without making a back-up.

At the appeal, which was to consider medical evidence, lawyers could muster only a transcript of one pretrial hearing and the closing arguments. ‘The rest is lost forever,’ according to court documents.