Forensic Science Service

Written evidence submitted by Mark Mastaglio (FSS 23)

SUBMISSION BY FSS FIREARMS STAFF

1. Introduction and declaration of interest

This submission has been prepared by Mark Mastaglio, the FSS Principal Scientist for firearms related casework in full consultation with all FSS staff who deliver firearms related casework; a full list of their names is appended to this submission. It represents some of our personal thoughts on the decision to close the FSS, specifically the impact on the investigation of firearms related crime. I have worked in the London Firearms Unit for twenty-two years. I am Chair of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes (ENFSI) Expert Working Group on Firearms/Gunshot Discharge Residues. ENFSI has been granted monopoly status by the EC being recognised as the source of advice on forensic science issues within the EU. I was the UK Lead Assessor for forensic firearms examination for the Council of Registered Forensic Practitioners until the demise of that organisation. I am a member of the following bodies:

· ACPO Firearms and Explosives Licensing Working Group and a member of its Technical Group

· The tripartite ACPO/Home Office/British Shooting Sports Council Forum

· A Home Office appointee on the Historic Weapons Panel

· The Home Office Firearms Forensic Science Standards Group

· A Senior Associate of the National Ballistics Intelligence Service

· The Royal Armouries Firearms Collection Service Level Agreement Committee

I am a published author on the subject of firearms related forensic science [1] . My colleagues and I have worked on many thousands of firearms related cases both in the UK and internationally and my role as FSS Firearms Principal Scientist gives me the lead in all matters of quality and development of FSS Firearms delivery. My role as Chair of the ENFSI Firearms Expert Working Group gives me an international platform in leading on matters of competence and harmonisation of procedures and in liaising with multinational agencies and professional bodies such as the European Firearms Experts, the EU Police Cooperation Working Party, the Association of Firearms and Toolmarks Examiners and the FBI led Scientific Working Group on Firearms.

2. Background to the FSS Firearms capability

There are two Firearms Laboratories, one in London the other in Manchester, staffed by the most experienced firearms forensic scientists in the UK. The FSS has over forty-five years experience in providing a firearms service, a track record unrivalled by any private provider. The London Unit covers the south and the Manchester Unit the north of the country. However the Units do not work in isolation, they are supported by the full battery of services offered by the FSS such as DNA, Fibres, Gunshot Discharge Residue, Toolmarks etc. We have nineteen firearms forensic scientists who cumulatively have over three hundred years experience. This national asset of talent and experience represents the largest collection in a single organisation of case reporting firearms forensic scientists in the UK. We have amassed a unique experience profile in dealing with firearms cases, from the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition through highly sensitive homicide and terrorist investigations. The Firearms Units provide 24/7, 365 day on-call cover for England and Wales; this can involve scenes of crime attendance involving complex reconstruction analysis and attending autopsy examinations providing help and information to pathologists and investigating officers on wound ballistics and intelligence on the potential causative weapons. The FSS has also amassed a plethora of databases and collections pertaining to gun related crime including the largest Firearms Reference collection of crime related guns in the UK, currently standing at over eleven thousand weapons. This reference collection is an invaluable resource and is used in everyday casework; no other Forensic Service Provider (FSP) or police force has anything like it. In 2003, with Home Office support, the FSS created the National Forensic Firearms Intelligence Database and was the first to introduce automated technology in connecting guns and crime scenes to one another; a function that in 2008 passed to the police through the creation of the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (NABIS). All FSS firearms staff are cleared through the Home Office Departmental Security Unit to SC level enabling them unrestricted access up to SECRET and supervised access to TOP SECRET assets. This level of security clearance enables our staff to work on the most sensitive of cases in collaboration with various organisations including the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the Counter Terrorism Command (SO15). It is unlikely that all of our private competitors have been cleared to such a level. It is our considered opinion that any fragmentation of the unique talent pool and database/collection assets will have a detrimental impact on the delivery of cost effective firearms forensic science to the Criminal Justice System (CJS).

3. Provision of firearms forensic science to the CJS

There are currently three privately owned FSPs that offer a forensic firearms service to the CJS. They are LGC Ltd, Key Forensics Ltd and Manlove Forensics Ltd. The former two are based in Leeds and Warrington, respectively, and the latter in Abingdon. LGC and Key have three reporting scientists each and Manlove, who are not accredited through the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) for firearms work, have one full time employee. LGC have had to recruit from abroad to obtain most of their staff and Key recently headhunted staff from the Manchester FSS Unit. The principal reason why the FSS staff left was because of the uncertainty that then existed in the future of the FSS. There is no privately owned credible forensic firearms service in the south of the country. The FSS capacity for firearms delivery is by far the largest in the UK and its dilution or disintegration can only have a detrimental effect on the efficient delivery of casework to the CJS. Following the creation of NABIS, three police-owned forensic firearms facilities were set up, one in Birmingham owned by West Midlands Police, one in Manchester (in the same building as the FSS facility) owned by Greater Manchester Police and one in London owned by the Metropolitan Police. NABIS was created following an ACPO/Home Office funded initiative with the remit of providing quick-time intelligence on gun crime to the police. The service was to be paid for by subscription from all ACPO forces, the size of the subscription being commensurate with the amount of gun crime in the subscribing force. Their remit specifically excluded the provision of evidence to the CJS; this was to be provided by FSPs. For the Birmingham and Manchester NABIS facilities this remains the case, bar the provision of evidential statements detailing gun links to crime scenes, however the Metropolitan Police opted out of paying the NABIS subscription and decided to provide a fully evidential service. This seems to have been a unilateral decision and we are unaware of any Governmental opinion or Parliamentary decision to support this. Despite the Metropolitan Police decision to provide evidential services they have been unable to recruit staff that can give competent expert interpretation at scenes and autopsies. It also remains the case that the Metropolitan Police have insufficient capacity to deliver Laboratory based forensic firearms work as evidenced by their need to sub-contract work out to the FSS and other FSPs. The current staffing levels of the two NABIS facilities in Birmingham and Manchester would be insufficient for them to deliver both intelligence and evidential products efficiently; the abstraction on evidential work would compromise the turnaround times for intelligence delivery. We do not believe with current capacity NABIS could deliver both evidential and intelligence products within acceptable time frames.

4. Complex cases and Counter Terrorist work

Some of most complex and sensitive work that require firearms forensic science input are the investigation of police fatal shootings and counter terrorist cases. In these areas the FSS staff are the most experienced in the country and have forged trusted relationships with key stakeholders in these types of investigations, such as with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and the Counter Terrorist Command (SO15). Tragic cases such as the Hungerford shootings in 1987 and more recently the Raoul Moat case were investigated with the help of FSS firearms scientists. The fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by police officers in 2005 provides an exemplar of why we need top class firearms examiners competent in scene reconstruction and wound ballistic interpretation that are totally independent of the police. The investigation was led by the IPCC who asked for our input because of our independence and world-class reputation for excellence and impartiality. Surely society demands justice to be served by the highest level of scientific integrity and perceived unbiased opinion. We have participated in numerous counter terrorist cases where our professionalism and discretion have been valued- no other provider can say this. Again our reputation and professionalism has been valued in countless complex international investigations such as those in Afghanistan, Jamaica, Kosovo, Somalia, Somaliland, Kenya, Brunei, British Virgin Islands, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Iraq. These inquiries include high profile investigations of the murder of UK citizens, high profile individuals and allegations of extra-judicial killings. In Kosovo for example our expertise was recognised by the UN who asked us to participate in the excavation of mass graves during the investigation of war crimes. No other forensic firearms unit in the country is as internationally well regarded. FSS scientists have also played a crucial part in combating the menace posed by so-called conversion factories, these are illicit workshops that convert blank firing guns into lethal firearms; the expertise of our firearms staff and that of colleagues who can match tools to toolmarks have been instrumental in the successful prosecution of underworld armourers. Again our expertise and national coverage are unique factors here. As stated in the introduction I also have a place on several national bodies and committees, with no FSS who will provide impartial strategic advice on matters of firearms forensic science to Government/Non-Government bodies and committees?

5. Scientific Quality and Individual Competence

The FSS has led the way in embedding scientific quality and peer review into the provision of forensic science. The FSS firearms units were the first in the country to be accredited by UKAS. All our scientists regularly take part in individual competency testing and we have developed what I believe to be the most robust testing regime in the UK. The creation of the Forensic Science Regulator in the Home Office was intended to provide minimum standards. However we believe there is general concern that so far the Regulator’s impact has been negligible; "light touch" and "by consent" seem to be the bye words. We would welcome the Committee’s view whether this approach is fit for purpose? Is it fair and balanced considering the enormous cost the FSS has invested in this area? We believe it is imperative for all providers of forensic science, and not just within the firearms field to be accredited and for practitioners to be subject to on- going competency testing. Early in 2009 the American National Academy of Sciences (N AS) published a critical report with respect to forensic science in the USA called "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward" [2] . The report focuses on scientific shortcomings and policy changes that could improve the provision of forensic science . They thought that forensic science evidence is often the product of shoddy scientific practices that s hould be upgraded and standardiz ed. One of the NAS criticisms seems to be that a fragmented approach did not help the situation. It is unfortunate that the UK appears to be following a more laissez-faire approach, with the intended break up of the FSS, than that recommended by the NAS. These issues of competence and scientific rigour within the CJS were pertinent to the deliberations of the S&T Committee in 2005 [3] .

6. Conclusions

We hope that this submission, albeit necessarily short, has given the Committee a flavour of the unique national asset that the FSS firearms staff and collections constitute. Any break-up of this asset would have a serious negative impact on the delivery of firearms forensic science to the CJS. No private provider or indeed the police, be it through NABIS or the Metropolitan Police, have the competent capacity to take on all the work currently carried out by the FSS firearms forensic scientists. If the FSS is to be wound up, an argument could be made for the wholesale transfer of niche units, which are most probably non-"profit" making, such as the FSS firearms capability to the police or a private supplier. However this would be to ignore the arguments we have put forward concerning perceived impartiality when it comes to the police. Or when it comes to private suppliers, issues of national security and the need to make a profit. In either case it would be essential for either type of organisation to be accredited to ISO17025, which not only embeds a Quality Management System but also ensures the recording of on-going competency. We would also urge you to accept that if such a wholesale transfer were to take place it would be iniquitous to transfer individuals who have dedicated their entire careers to public service on terms that were not covered by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, known as 'TUPE'. A transfer to an individual police force would also have to have in-built safeguards so that the provision of firearms forensic science to other geographic areas would not be compromised. We feel that the Judiciary, The Bar, The Law Society, the IPCC, The British Association of Forensic Medicine and the UK Coroners would support the need for us to continue in providing a public service and we urge you to seek their opinions. Finally I would like to finish with a question and a cri de coeur; if the FSS firearms capability were to be disbanded who would provide the forensic evidence in the next spree shooting, Rhys Jones case or terrorist outrage? Fortunately in the UK we have relatively low levels of gun crime compared with the USA and some of our continental neighbours, however every fatal shooting is a tragedy and every gun incident has a profound effect on our communities. Between 1998 and 2009, there were, on average, sixty-three firearms homicides each year and hundreds more attempted murders and woundings [4] . We hope that the Committee would agree that to do without the input of the most experienced firearms forensic scientists in the land could in itself constitute a crime against justice.

Mark Mastaglio

9 February 2011

Appendix

All members of the FSS Firearms Units have seen this submission and agree with its contents. They are:

B J Astley (Firearms Team Leader, 12 years service)

P G Brookes (Senior Forensic Scientist, 32 years service)

R H Griffiths (Senior Forensic Scientist, 27 years service)

A G Hannam (Senior Forensic Scientist, 10 years service)

S I Harries (Forensic Examiner, 10 years service)

D Henshaw (Firearms Team Administrator, 9 years service)

I Johnson (Senior Forensic Scientist, 31 years service)

D Lewis (Firearms Team Administrator, 12 years service)

I Maginnes (Forensic Scientist, 10 years service)

A McCarthy (Forensic Scientist, 10 years service)

N Musgrave (Forensic Scientist, 12 years service)

P Olden (Senior Forensic Scientist, 22 years service)

G Pask (Firearms Team Leader, 6 years service)

M N Robinson (Senior Forensic Scientist, 24 years service)

P C Rydeard (Senior Forensic Scientist, 41 years service)

E Sargeant (Forensic Examiner, 3 years service)

C Shurrock (Forensic Examiner, 10 years service)

G Silcock (Firearms Team Administrator, 4 years service)

A Skae (Senior Forensic Scientist, 10 years service)

F A Tomei (Senior Forensic Scientist, 37 years service)

M J K Vaughan (Senior Forensic Scientist, 18 years service)

R Woods (Forensic Scientist, 9 years service)


[1] From Crime Scene to Court: The Essentials of Forensic Science, 3 rd ed. published by the Royal Society of Chemistry, August 2010.

[2] I SBN-10: 0-309-13135-9, ISBN-13: 978-0-309-13135-3

[3] Science and Technology Committee Report, Forensic Science on Trial . No.36 of Session 2004-05 28 March 2005.

[4] H ome Office Statistical Bulletin; Homicides, Firearm Offences and Intimate Violence 2008/09, 21 st January 2010. ISSN 1358 -510X