Forensic Science Service

Written evidence submitted by Mrs Carol Hannam (FSS 14)

1. Introduction: I abhor the closing of yet again another centre of excellence. Once again the standards which we knew as children and young adults are being dismantled and replaced by an inferior substitute. When will the institutions which are world wide recognised for their excellence be freed from the deliberate acts of decimation?

2. I would like to declare my interest. My daughter is employed by the Forensic Science Service at their London laboratory as a Senior Forensic Scientist. She specialises in the examination of firearms, ammunition and related items and in the interpretation of firearms related damage and gunshot wounds. She has specialised continuously and exclusively in this field since November 2001. She works under her maiden name of Abigail Hannam.

3. The Forensic Science Service has a world wide reputation for excellence, impartiality and expertise. The petition set up to draw attention to the travesty of the closure of the Forensic Science Service has been signed by people from all over the world. The letter to The Times was signed by leading scientists again from all over the world. These thoughts, based on clear common sense, need taking into consideration.

4. At the moment the Forensic Science Service deals with 60% [approx] of the forensic marketplace. When this body of excellence is closed down who will do the work? Where firearms are concerned it is no good claiming that it will be the Metropolitan Police Service Forensic Firearms Unit. They are not competent to do the work as they do not have the required competences to carry out post mortem and 24 hour scene work. Since the Metropolitan Police Service Forensic Firearms Unit - ie in house - decided to take over the Met firearms casework they have in fact sent back to the Forensic Science Service up to 20 cases per week. Is this because they do not have the manpower to deal with the workload or is it, as I suspect, because they do not have the ability, determination and competence to carry it out. As a mere lay person I find it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that a relatively new department at the Met cannot achieve the outcomes which were expected of it. What will happen when the Forensic Science Service can no longer bail them out?

5. Private companies do not seem able to deal with the problems either. No doubt they will take on the cheap and marketable areas like DNA and drugs. However when LGC had to take on staff from the Forensic Science Service London drugs department they took them on with all their rights of employment and then promptly made them redundant on their first day at work. It does not seem that the private companies have the ability to absorb the excellence of the Forensic Science Service. Why continue to try? If such a big company as LGC cannot do it hoping for the remainder to take it on is a pie in the sky idea.

6. Without the Forensic Science Service who will maintain the excellence of the service, its reputation not only of excellence but of impartiality, the deployment of new and advanced techniques and the world class training services?

7. Somebody somewhere has to pay the bill. Out there are the muggers, murderers, rapists, fraudsters and criminals of every description. These people have to be brought to court and given a fair trial. Who pays for the expertise of the examiners to go into the dock and give evidence? I do, together with all the other millions of tax payers in this country. What do I want? Evidence. I want the evidence to stand up to any barrister either of defence or prosecution from the lowest to the highest courts of the land. How do I and the other millions get this impartial evidence? The only way is to make sure that the evidence is delivered by an expert and the only experts who have this ‘clout’ are those from the Forensic Science Service.

8. Independent, authoritative and impartial provision of expert forensic science evidence and analysis is essential to the proper investigation of crime and the effective prosecution of its perpetrators. One of the dangers of allegedly expert analysis is that many people claim to be expert in aspects of forensic science when, in fact, they are not or, if they are, they have a private interest to protect. In court the prosecution scrutinises carefully whether or not the defence expert is accurately described as such and vice versa. If the expert is an employee of the Forensic Science Service such probing will fail. If an expert is put up to give evidence by the Forensic Science Service it can be taken as read that the expert will have the qualifications, training and experience to justify the title. In the case of the four young cadets at the Deepcut Army Barracks in Surrey who had died from gunshot wounds between 1995 and 2002, the idea was touted by an "expert" instructed by the families of the deceased that these deaths were homicide. The families were of course distressed out of their minds. The media responded and clamour ensued. The true experts from the Forensic Science Service were able to show quite conclusively that each death was a suicide. Their conclusions showed that the "expert" was no such thing, distraught people were played upon and that the problem was not who did it, but why had the cadets felt compelled to take their own lives. The lesson here is clear. It is better to rely on a true expert who can conclusively prove his point, both to judge and jury; that by using a proper expert and not a jumped up quack a conviction can be maintained and secured; that an expert can manifestly be seen to be an expert and that his evidence is completely impartial. When it comes to finances and money saving it is not economically sound to have failed prosecutions and when it comes to the safety of the community it is not sound to have villains on the streets because prosecutions have failed. Let the expert truly be an expert, seen and accepted as such by all right thinking men.

9. Speaking from a personal point of view when my child or grandchild is murdered I want justice to be done. I want the offender punished according to law. This is best served by police attempting to solve the crime. When they do it is essential that they get prompt answers to their enquiries, speed sometimes being of the essence. They need to speak in conference to all the experts under the same roof and at the same time. The exhibits which they wish to submit need to be in investigated quickly and efficiently. If a gun is submitted it needs to be analysed for all sorts of things, I would imagine, not only the bullets and their patterns but for DNA, fibres etc .This cannot happen if a policeman has to walk around submitting the same item to different companies in the private sector. Who and how will it be protected from contamination? How speedy will the analysis be? Who is competent to go to the scene and retrieve the bullets and go to the post mortem and gather the evidence? It is the Forensic Science Service and only the Forensic Science Service that can deliver these goods and satisfy my requirements and those, I hasten to add once again, of any right thinking person.

10. People are human and have human frailties. If a policeman works in the same force as the experts working on his case there will come a time when they stop for coffee together and maybe become friends. Judgements become warped and false evidence is given. This may never happen, but surely it must be seen to be apparent that it will not happen because the experts employed in a case are not paid from the same purse. Impartiality must be seen to be happening.

11. The older employees at the Forensic Science Service have such a wealth of knowledge and experience which is found in neither books nor on the internet. It is passed on down the generations of employees in a mentoring service. Where will the next generation of experience come from? Who will mentor the teams outside the Forensic Science Service to make sure that standards are maintained?

12. With the closure of the Forensic Science Service who will hold the vast databases? On who’s disc in who’s computer will they be lost from? This is the track record of databases held and carried in places other than the Forensic Science Service. Will there be yet another ‘we are very sorry’ message put out when data is lost and maybe picked up by the unscrupulous? Which privately owned company will benefit from selling the data and the information which has been inherited from the Forensic Science Service? Who will hold the national collection of guns?

13. On the question of cutting costs, the expertise of the service is obviously in the laboratories where the experts are paid poor salaries, whilst the expense of the service is in the management layers who spend their time in interminable committee meetings and take home huge salaries for spending their days talking and talking some more. What are their targets I wonder and how are they measured. The expertise of the laboratories, once lost, cannot be replaced whereas the middle managers have no particular skills in this area and therefore are very expendable and easily replaced. I would be surprised if the axe fell where it clearly should, because of who wealds the axe.

14. Some aspects of a civilised society should and need to be above finance and profit and loss. Some aspects of our culture, democracy and civilisation depend on service. Some parts of our life are not and should not be costed out. The provision of an impartial, excellent, world renowned Forensic Science Service must be preserved. We must take our place on the world’s stage with our experts instead of lurking away behind doors of economics and balanced books. The books of a service will not and should never balance. A service is a cost and the populace, in this instance, will be prepared to pay. The only people likely to benefit from the break up of the Forensic Science Service are the villains.

15. In conclusion the Forensic Science Service is a jewel in the nation’s scientific crown. It provides impartial, quality and expert opinion for the criminal justice system and remains a recognised world leader within the sphere of forensic science. Its independence has allowed it to innovate and to develop fresh areas of scientific knowledge which has been world-changing. I implore you to preserve it.

Mrs Carol Hannam

2 February 2011