Forensic Science Service

Supplementary written evidence submitted by Professor Peter Gill (FSS 19a)

I think the issue relating to impartiality and disclosure of evidence in a commercial environment is not as straight-forward as CPS represent. There are serious concerns relating to disclosure of 'commercially sensitive material'.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article2955426.ece

Of course there is no debate that material must be disclosed if required by a court, and that the material will usually be forthcoming if required by the defence, if it is relevant to the case.

But simple disclosure is not peer review by any stretch of the imagination. For peer review to be effective, we require publication and availability for testing within the relevant scientific community.

The problem with R v Boughton was that a) computer code may be made available for a defence expert by court order b) In the limited time/budget available the defence expert has no hope of understanding the code, or other method c) If the court order is restrictive then the defence expert is unable to circulate for peer review.

Please bear in mind that budgets available to prosecution and defence scientists are often disproportionate - this means that sufficient resources are simply not available to the latter to carry out effective discovery (another reason to restrict the ' commercially sensitive' paradigm) - and this is never as effective as peer review.

Court going experts don't represent the 'scientific consensus', indeed there is an inherent danger with the adversarial court system that barristers go 'fishing' for experts that represent extreme points of view that clearly do not represent the scientific consensus. These experts may well proffer their own personal veiwpoints that diverge from scientific consensus.

All of my above points argue strongly against use of 'commercial in confidence' methods per se, especially if it impacts on the court-reported statistic (or strength of evidence assessment).

The regulator function does not replace peer review, and does not extend to comparative studies to ensure commercial method (a) is comparable to commercial method (b) for example.

Peter Gill

Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Oslo

Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde

30 March 2011