Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Article: CCTV in Criminal Cases
With thanks to Robert Butler of BFS Forensic Services. One of our members at X-Pro, Robert is an experienced expert witness in CCTV video enhancement and interpretation. His article on CCTV in criminal cases has been republished by us here.
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Article: Prevention of Phone Hacking
Big thank you to X-Pro member and expert witness Simon Lang for his article on simple steps that anyone can take to prevent their phone from being hacked:
Prevention of Phone Hacking by Simon Lang
Simon works at Sytech and you can find out about their services here.
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Aren't British Policemen Wonderful?
What's the saying about German engineers, French chefs and British policemen? As a former bobby myself I can attest to the fact that by and large our boys and girls on the beat have always done a pretty good job.
But times change, and after a 25 year career as a criminal lawyer I regret to report a noticeable decline in standards. Take this example. A few years ago I was doing a bit of prosecuting in the local Magistrates Court for the CPS. The case involved evidence from a total of eight officers. When I was in the 'Force' it was drummed into me to be at court at least 30 minutes before the scheduled start time (usually 10.00am), and I always complied - knees knocking and hands shaking. But now it's apparently acceptable for officers to stroll into court well after the scheduled time. In my case, most of them arrived at 10.15 and the OIC (Officer in the Case) graced us with his presence at 10.20am. No explanation, no apology. One of them actually seemed outraged that I would dare to ask why they were late.
I had my revenge by getting the magistrates to come into court, lining up all the officers at the back and inviting the beaks to berate them publicly. The mags duly obliged but to no avail. The case continued and the OIC turned up late again the following day. Truly shocking, but symptomatic of a culture of ominpotence.
But it goes further. The quality of oral testimony is by and large pretty poor too, though there are exceptions. Who is training these people? When I offered to help by writing to the Chief Constable I never even had a reply. Exaggeration and outright untruthfulness were sadly common and my admittedly jaundiced view was depressingly reinforced this week when I spotted the story of a woman from Merseyside who was 'fitted up' by a WPC. To cut a long story short there had been a family disagreement at a local pub on Christmas Eve and arrests were made. When this lady spoke to the WPC asking that the detained persons be released and explained that it was just a 'silly family dispute' she was arrested and accused of pulling the officer's hair. She spent most of Christmas day wearing a paper suit and sitting in a cell, not being allowed to speak to her family.
When the case was heard the District Judge stopped the case and was "convinced the officer was not telling the truth". This would have been unheard of years ago.
We can't tar every police officer with the same brush of course and our police are generally decent folk who do a good job but the lowering of standards no longer means they are the envy of the world. 'Wonderful'? Sadly no more.
But times change, and after a 25 year career as a criminal lawyer I regret to report a noticeable decline in standards. Take this example. A few years ago I was doing a bit of prosecuting in the local Magistrates Court for the CPS. The case involved evidence from a total of eight officers. When I was in the 'Force' it was drummed into me to be at court at least 30 minutes before the scheduled start time (usually 10.00am), and I always complied - knees knocking and hands shaking. But now it's apparently acceptable for officers to stroll into court well after the scheduled time. In my case, most of them arrived at 10.15 and the OIC (Officer in the Case) graced us with his presence at 10.20am. No explanation, no apology. One of them actually seemed outraged that I would dare to ask why they were late.
I had my revenge by getting the magistrates to come into court, lining up all the officers at the back and inviting the beaks to berate them publicly. The mags duly obliged but to no avail. The case continued and the OIC turned up late again the following day. Truly shocking, but symptomatic of a culture of ominpotence.
But it goes further. The quality of oral testimony is by and large pretty poor too, though there are exceptions. Who is training these people? When I offered to help by writing to the Chief Constable I never even had a reply. Exaggeration and outright untruthfulness were sadly common and my admittedly jaundiced view was depressingly reinforced this week when I spotted the story of a woman from Merseyside who was 'fitted up' by a WPC. To cut a long story short there had been a family disagreement at a local pub on Christmas Eve and arrests were made. When this lady spoke to the WPC asking that the detained persons be released and explained that it was just a 'silly family dispute' she was arrested and accused of pulling the officer's hair. She spent most of Christmas day wearing a paper suit and sitting in a cell, not being allowed to speak to her family.
When the case was heard the District Judge stopped the case and was "convinced the officer was not telling the truth". This would have been unheard of years ago.
We can't tar every police officer with the same brush of course and our police are generally decent folk who do a good job but the lowering of standards no longer means they are the envy of the world. 'Wonderful'? Sadly no more.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Article: Contamination!
Expert Witness Article. With thanks to fingerprint and scenes of crime specialist Nikki Smith of BioMark Forensics on DNA contamination.
Click here for the article.
Click here for the article.
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