Meet the Sheriff with MND who uses a computerised voice to dispense justice

Daily Mail​

a day ago

The 15 men and women selected for the jury file into the courtroom to find the bewigged figure on the bench prodding at a laptop with two fingers. They sit in silence, unacknowledged, and wait.
Finally Sheriff Alastair Carmichael looks up at them and beams. 'Good morning,' says a disembodied voice. He gestures a greeting with his face.
'You will have noticed that my lips are not moving. This is because my voice doesn't work properly.'
In court number four, solemn procedure is under way. A man sits in the dock accused of sex offences and assaults on women.
The evidence is expected to take a week or more. And the sheriff presiding over the trial, it seems, does not speak.
Remarkably, no one present appears fazed by this, least of all the sheriff, who is back typing again.
'It will probably seem a bit weird at first,' he says, again not moving his lips. 'But you will get used to it.'
The hearing unfolding in Dundee Sheriff Court is, in many ways, wholly unexceptional. It follows standard criminal court procedure established under Scots Law and, as always, requires the jury to return a true verdict based solely on the evidence they hear.
And yet the trials heard by Sheriff Carmichael are both singular and extraordinary. No other judge in the UK – and possibly the world – uses synthesised speech to communicate in a courtroom.
That he can do so with increasing aplomb – and no little wit – represents a triumph over a shattering diagnosis which was expected to be career-ending. It was in early 2024 that the 62-year-old learned he had a form of motor neurone disease (MND) called progressive bulbar palsy, which affects his ability to speak.
It began in 2023 with a numbness inside his mouth and developed into a lisp. Soon he was struggling to enunciate clearly.
He says: 'Verbal communication is a massive part of my job, so when I did think about the impact it might have on my job it didn't take long to work out that this was going to be a problem.'
Sheriffs and judges have a key speaking role in every kind of court hearing. It might be sentencing an offender, addressing a jury, dealing with objections raised by the prosecution or defence during witness testimony or simply announcing when it is time to break for lunch.
If the most senior legal figure in the room lacks the power of speech, do the wheels of justice not grind to a halt?
Thanks to a spot of computer wizardry, they are still turning in Sheriff Carmichael's courtroom.
His synthesised voice – a representation of how he spoke before his condition progressed too far – is now telling the jury to listen carefully to the charges which the sheriff clerk is about to read out.
A few minutes later, as he embarks on a 20-minute address on the jury's role in the trial, he expands on the technological intricacies at play in having a computer do your speaking for you.
Some of the things they will hear him say are 'pre-loaded' on to the computer. At the touch of a button, the appropriate words will come out of the speaker beside him.
Other things he types in on the spot. 'I can touch type but it's not quite quick enough to beat the two-fingered style,' he admits.
Longer speeches cannot yet be delivered in his own voice, he tells the jury, so they should expect to hear several different ones – all creations of Microsoft – during the trial. Indeed, he says, it's not always possible to control the program's choice of speaker.
He smiles again as the Microsoft voice makes a little joke on his behalf. 'Sometimes it's a complete surprise to me which voice comes to the microphone – maybe they have a rota which they keep secret from me.'
Sheriff Carmichael has given nicknames to the most frequently-heard of these voices. There's Flat George and his female counterpart Flat Hazel – and then there are Smooth George and Smooth Hazel.
The latter two, he suspects, are 'moonlighting' because he recognises their voices from safety instructions on airlines.
It's a disarmingly humorous way to begin a court trial involving serious charges which, if proven, could result in a jail term. Yet the brief bout of levity feels a wise and appropriate way to acquaint the jury with the uniqueness of the situation.
Their key instruction is to remember that all the synthesised words they hear are the sheriff's own. They may not come from his lips, but he chooses them. You could say he is a sheriff of many voices but one mind.
Meeting me in his chambers before the start of the trial, the lawman looks to be in fine health. His form of MND has spared him the muscle weakness, twitching and spasms that are typical symptoms of many sufferers. He moves around briskly, shakes my hand firmly and, you can tell at once, is warm and personable.
It is only when he speaks that it becomes evident what the condition has done to him.
His offer of a cup of tea or coffee is so indistinct I understand it only because it is a typical thing to say at the start of a meeting.
I manage to make out some of what he says but, when he sees me struggling, he patiently writes his words in block capitals on a notepad.
It's a strained form of dialogue which somehow feels worse for the fact the man losing his ability to voice his thoughts is clearly highly articulate. He is passionate about advocacy and has spent much time in his career training lawyers in improving their court performance. How distressing for a born communicator to be deprived of a tool central to his own performance.
He invites me round to his side of the desk to see one of the two computer programs he uses in action. Developed in Scotland and introduced to him by the Tayside MND Team, SpeakUnique is a complex array of pre-loads and text-to-speech functions which took months to master.
'I banked my voice early on – when it wasn't badly impaired – by recording 300 sentences,' says the sheriff.
'SpeakUnique did the rest and produced my synthetic voice.'
True, things can and do go wrong. One occasion, he was putting an interpreter on oath and he pressed the wrong key.
'There is no alternative to a custodial sentence,' the synthesised voice told the startled witness. 'Luckily, she was a regular in court and was familiar with me using my laptop,' he says.
'Also, she has a cracking sense of humour, so we were able to have a smile about it and then carry on.
'You are very exposed when you're in court because it's a public place and there are always people watching and listening – that's the way it's meant to be – so when things go wrong there's no hiding place.
'Things do go wrong, and I do make mistakes with this IT.
'However, it's just like somebody who can speak with their own voice saying the wrong thing; you have to correct the mistake and carry on.
'Courts are not inherently funny places because we deal with all sorts of bad stuff. But when something does go wrong, there can still be a humorous side to it.'
His mastery of the two programs he needs to preside over trials is improving every day, however, and the process is becoming slicker.
By the time the court breaks for lunch the lengthy instructions to the jury are delivered – even if the sheriff hasn't said a word. It helps that he engages them with his eyes throughout and uses facial and hand gestures to underline his points.
It is only afterwards that he admits to me the jury speech did not go entirely as planned. It was delivered by the somewhat monotone Flat George – who turns up when there is no internet connection – rather than Smooth George, who does the talking when there is.
'I'm a big fan of Smooth George because he makes me sound rather suave and reasonably intelligent.'
There is another light moment as the jury returns for the afternoon session. The sheriff smiles wryly as he and his computer tell them: 'I do hope that your jury lunch was all that you dreamed it would be, and more.'
But, as the first witness is called, solemnity is restored. The challenges on the bench and the sheriff's monumental effort to overcome them are set aside and, just as it should be, the focus is solely on the evidence. It is true justice proceeds a little more slowly in Sheriff Carmichael's court – partly because he has deliberately avoided preloading stock phrases for every eventuality.
He explains: 'If I just pressed a button for every situation it would be a robotic, unempathetic and sterile way to go about things. Juries and everybody else in court must be able to trust me to be fair.
'It's a fact that I can't speak, and also that I have to use this IT to communicate. It's a fact that it takes a wee bit longer to use this IT than it did when I could speak.
'But seeing me flailing away at the keyboard underlines to people that I am human, that I can't speak and that I am focused and invested in whichever case it is that I am doing at the time.'
How have the various courtroom players responded to his cast of synthesised speakers?
'It's amazing,' he says. 'Most people think at first that it's a bit different – and they'd be right. What I appreciate the most is that people adapt very quickly to allowing me a wee bit of extra time to type and speak, and they are looking for visual clues.'
Indeed, he suggests, it is they who make his work possible.
'Some people will tell me how amazed they are at what we're achieving. I suppose that they're right, but they often forget that they are playing a huge part in this too by adapting how they communicate with me.'
His wife Helen and two grown-up sons remain the most attuned to his deteriorating speaking voice and, he says, 'keep retuning' to it as it declines.
But he admits: 'Recently even they can struggle to get it sometimes or perhaps won't get it at all. I do write notes sometimes and will use the SpeakUnique app on my phone to talk to them as well.'
Yet, with the backing of his boss, Sheriff Principal Gillian Wade, and 'fantastic' support from lawyers and court staff, he has prevailed in his job. How important was it for him to stay on in the face of a seemingly disastrous diagnosis?
'It means a hell of a lot. I have always been motivated by public service. I had a great start in life and have always wanted to use that to contribute to society as best as I can.
'I don't just want to a part of society, I want to be an active participant who makes a positive contribution.'
He says he has no plans to retire before 70, which is the mandatory age for sheriffs to go.
'I don't know what MND has planned for me, other than that it won't be pleasant. All of the medicos have been at pains to say that it goes for different people in different ways and at different rates.
'I'm not going to consume time and energy thinking ahead to what might happen and to what I might not be able to do, I'd rather use it to enjoy what I can do today.'
For a man dedicated to justice his diagnosis seems the opposite of that. But justice is prevailing in courtroom number four – inspirationally so.