Wakefield was hired at "£150 per hour plus expenses" and within six weeks recruited twelve children, actively seeking for cases that might imply a connection between vaccination and development issues. Barr managed to convince Legal Aid Board, a UK government financial support organization for victims of crimes, to fund the initial stage of research assigning £55,000. According to journalist Brian Deer, the whole research of Wakefield and his team was paid and intended to create evidence for the court case, which was the main reason for its lack of scientific accuracy, bias in selection of patients and falsification of results.