Forensic Science Group

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Is The Forensic Evidence Really Is Beyond Reasonable Doubt?

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As providers of independent forensic advice and opinion for a number of years, we at Forensic Equity know that engaging a forensic expert to re-examine evidence on behalf of the defence is not always easy. There may be frequent delays in response from both the CPS and the police to requests for access to case notes and exhibits. It may take many phone calls and emails and a lot of perseverance on your part to get the required authority for your chosen expert to view crucial exhibits at a forensic laboratory and to look at the case notes and talk to the prosecution scientist who wrote them and provided a statement for the Crown. Meanwhile the clock is ticking towards the court date and courts are not always sympathetic to requests for postponements, even if the delays are not of the defence’s making.

We at Forensic Equity are here to help you cut through the red tape and ease the bottlenecks in gaining access to crucial forensic evidential material. We pride ourselves on knowing the system and the scientists and police officers within it. As forensic scientists we occupy a unique non- adversarial role, where we find that we often don’t encounter the same reticence that police officers or CPS officials may have to cooperating with the defence solicitor to expedite prompt access to those crucial exhibits. If you can get us those initial contact details of the CPS official and/or police officer dealing with your case then, with your written authority, we can do a lot of the necessary chasing for you, which could save substantial time in gaining access and leave you free to deal with other aspects of the case.

We also pride ourselves on being responsive and meeting tight deadlines wherever possible. So having gained access to the exhibits before that all important court date we would do our very best to produce our expert report in time too and keep you updated of our progress at regular intervals. So why not try out the services of our experts and we guarantee that you will never have second thoughts about commissioning that all important forensic defence review again.

About Forensic Equity and its Forensic Science Services Forensic Equity is one of the leading forensic science service providers in the UK, offering comprehensive forensic services of the highest quality to a wide range of clients, including defence solicitors and barristers, law enforcement agencies, the police and other government bodies. Our key aim is to make current, impartial, forensic expertise of the highest calibre accessible to all.

These forensic science services are provided by some of the leading forensic scientists in Europe, who bring their many years of forensic training, experience and knowledge together to offer the most current and credible forensic services available.

As leaders in their particular field, our forensic scientists enjoy international recognition for their work. All have provided forensic science consultancy and advice to government agencies, solicitors and private companies and are well versed in all aspects of the criminal and civil justice system.

Forensic Equity is a leading forensic services provider. Our internationally recognised forensic scientists provide superior principal forensic services to the defence and prosecution

We will invariably provide the forensic scientist best placed to report and provide expert witness comment on the forensic evidence type in your case; ensuring that the value of that evidence is explained in a clear and credible manner to ensure the best possible outcome.

Our team of forensic experts includes forensic scientists specialising in all of the mainstream forensic evidence types

Forensic Science Job Market

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Forensic science can be defined as the application of scientific methods and principles to solve crimes and other types of legal issues. In most criminal cases, a forensic scientist is typically involved in looking for and examining many kinds of physical evidence that can help establishing a link between a suspect of committing a crime and the scene of the crime or victim. Forensics is now a more popular subject since several TV shows became successful, such as Crime Scene Investigation (CSI).

However, very few people realize that being a CSI or forensic professional can be a very good career alternative. One can put forward many reasons that make forensic science one of the best career prospects nowadays. The reasons range from labor market, salaries, benefits to training availability and beyond.

The availability of jobs for someone seeking to be a forensic professional used to be very small for a long time until about five years ago, when many technological and scientific advances started to develop and provided new kinds of tools that substantially improved the efficiency of the police and security forces in solving crimes and other problems. As a consequence, most law enforcement agencies and other institutions greatly expanded their resources and facilities in order to increase their ability to employing techniques and methodologies of forensic science.

Even though police departments alone employ (and keep hiring) thousands of people coming from diverse areas of forensic work and with many different educational backgrounds, police is not the only alternative for those looking for a job related to forensic science or criminal justice. Methods and concepts of forensic science are increasingly being used by many other institutions for diverse purposes so the job market for forensics is greater than ever. Companies that develop, improve and produce tools, reagents, kits and devices to be used in forensic investigation are also a good part of the available job market. The size of the job market and the opportunities associated greatly increase if one considers working abroad. Besides the United States, countries like Britain and Australia are also part of this trend.

Being a discipline that relies strongly on technology, working in forensic science requires the acquisition of certain skills. This means somebody wanting to work in forensics needs at least some sort of higher education. The type of degree and the length of the program vary largely and depend on the kind of work one is interested in doing. Some positions require higher degrees such as Ph.D. or Masters, but many more posts can be taken after a short course of one or two years earned at smaller private academies.

But these requirements are not a big obstacle to be sorted out if one considers the many benefits of working for a forensic department. Positions at police agencies and other law enforcement institutions are often accompanied by substantial benefits and competitive salaries and, best of all, good prospects of stability and professional growth along with an aura of social approval typically associated with law and order public service. These and many other reasons make forensic science on of the best career alternatives available today.

Juan Salvo is a web publisher and helped many people develop successful careers in forensics. He researches and writes about forensics schools and programs in forensic science. He also writes about DNA science.

What Forensic Science Is About

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When we want to get answers to questions relating to criminal activities and crime related actions, we use forensic science. This involves applying practically wall the knowledge of science in order to be bale to get answers in certain specific crime related questions.

Forensic science is a science that has been changing since its inception around the 212BC and ranges in scope involving the application of natural scientific techniques and procedures to be bale to disclose certain legal and criminal activities.

Since it is a science that is in wide use, people have decided to condense it and call it forensics to show it’s a commonly known and used term that way. In fact it is one word that is being accepted all over from the court to matters that involves the issue of the crime. It truly has spread everywhere for people to use.

It has been even transferred to the dictionary and in fact some of them tend to associate forensics with the original name that which has always been used making it to take over the name of forensic science.

Forensic has a long renown history dating back t the years where we had the roman emperor being one of the greatest rulers, when their was a criminal charge that wanted to confront a group of public peers who were pleading for innocence s they were being accused.

Whosoever gave the convincing evidence either in wording or in speech with at least some physical evidence managed to win the case that is similar to what the prosecutor and the attorney do to our courts today.

When it comes to crime scene investigation (CSI) it mainly involves forensic study and research where the investigator has to gather enough evidence through research and collect enough physical evidence preserve it and use it in court to nail down the accused.

CSI is one field that uses science with other scientific skills borrows from other subjects so that you can be able to gather enough evidence. Together is becomes a force and has information at its fingertips to use at any moment.

The author also regularly contributes articles regarding things including outdoor string lights and wrought iron light fixtures.

The History Of Forensic Science

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Today our legal system relies heavily and borrows from the Forensic sciences with their various applications to examine evidence and determine the causes and other facts in solving both criminal as well as civil law suits.

The scope of the forensic science has evolved over the years to include several branches that use natural scientific techniques and methods to examine and determine several legal and criminal evidences. It is said that the forensic science as such originate and began to be developed around 212 BC and even as early as 7th century, humans had developed the system of finger printing as unique mark of identification.

Over the years people have begun referring to the field as forensics thus replacing the long phrasing terms. This has now become universally acceptable term and is also used as a misnomer to mean and refer to as a synonym for ‘legal things and legitimate’ phrases.

Since the term forensics has become universally accepted term and is synonymous with criminal field related scientific study, the new phrase has also found a place in the dictionaries where it is mentioned next to the original term.

Forensic science seemed have been developed and used extensively even during the Roman Empire. History records show that an assembly of public peers would be convened to evidence the proceedings of a criminal case where both the accused and the accuser would be given chance to argue their case.

Who ever had the best argumentative, verbose and demonstrative skills and could demonstrate logic based and forensic science based evidence clearly emerged the winner and often it was this skill that led to the victory in legal battles very much like our modern day courts where lawyers and attorneys use their skills to argue the case.

In a way the science of a Crime Scene Investigation as well as forensics study seem to be apparently overlapping and related through very different and distinctive in their final purpose. The role of a Crime Scene Investigator is more to do with discovery, collection, documenting and preserving of physical evidence at site that is later used to present along with evidence as identification in the court to be able to apprehend the perpetrator.

Crime Scene Investigation is a multi disciplinary science that involves both scientific knowledge as well as other areas comprising of logic, law as well as mathematics etc.

Aside from forensic science, this writer also regularly writes about closet shelves and dvd shelves.

Forensic evidence and the key role of the forensic scientist

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Forensic scientists have a very important role in the criminal process: from initial crime scene investigation to forensic laboratory analysis to providing expert forensic statements and culminating in their appearance in court as an expert witness. Forensic scientists do not just perform forensic analyses and report on the results. As expert witnesses they are allowed to provide opinion as well factual evidence in criminal cases. Interpretation of certain factual evidence and opinions relating to it may vary between forensic experts; which is where forensic defence experts come in to the equation. Many will be extremely experienced and long serving forensic scientists who can use their experience and expertise to re-examine the forensic evidence and peer review any statements from the Crown’s experts. Where appropriate, they can offer alternative forensic expert interpretation and opinion and appear in court as an expert witness for the defence.

Forensic science is divided into several disciplines and most forensic scientists who act as expert witnesses will usually specialise in one or two particular disciplines, which is what makes them ‘experts’ rather than just someone with a general knowledge of forensic science as a whole. These forensic disciplines include Forensic Biology and DNA, Forensic chemistry (which includes marks and traces), Forensic Drugs, Forensic Toxicology, Fingerprints, Firearms and ballistics and Road traffic accident investigation. In many serious criminal cases the trial may involve obtaining forensic evidence from forensic scientists in a whole range of forensic disciplines.

To get a better idea of the role of the forensic scientist let us consider a few case scenarios:

Example case – The crime scene of a violent assault/murder where the victim’s body is still at the scene.

At a crime scene of this nature there may be contact trace exchange, such as blood, DNA, hairs, fibres etc. between the victim and their assailant. This will involve a forensic biologist and necessitate forensic DNA analysis as well as fibre analysis, blood pattern analysis and should also include the examination of the victim’s and suspect’s clothing. All of this forensic evidence can then be interpreted by an expert forensic biologist.

There may be blood stains, smears and splashes, all of which if interpreted correctly by an experienced expert forensic biologist can indicate a possible scenario of what took place at the crime scene before and after the victims death.

There may be fingerprints to be lifted and examined by a fingerprint expert and shoeprints to be photographed and compared by a forensic chemistry expert to shoes found on the person or at the home of a suspected assailant.

It may be that it was suspected that the murder occurred after an argument fuelled by drugs and/or alcohol. Blood samples would then be taken at post mortem and sent to the forensic laboratory for forensic analysis for drugs and alcohol by a forensic toxicologist. The results of these analyses would then be interpreted by a forensic toxicology expert.

In a case of this type there could be several expert witness statements: from a forensic biologist, a forensic chemist, a fingerprint expert and a forensic toxicologist. The content of these statements may or may not be pulled together by an overarching statement from the %u2018lead forensic scientist’ in the case.

Example case – The crime scene of a large scale cannabis cultivation run by a serious organised crime group.

Drugs scenes of this nature are invariably ‘forensicated’ by police personnel (PCs and SOCOs – Scenes of Crime officers). Photographs are usually taken, cannabis plant samples are submitted to the forensic laboratory for forensic examination and forensic analysis and then usually the whole scene is dismantled and all the other cannabis plants are disposed of. This makes the job of a forensic drugs scientist quite problematic as they have to make their interpretation of the scene from photographs and the few sample cannabis plants submitted, with the rest of the forensic evidence having been destroyed.

The role of the forensic cannabis cultivation expert is to identify and analyse the cannabis plants submitted and, based on the photographs and police information about the crime scene to give opinions on the conditions under which the cannabis plants were grown and to estimate the potential yields of cannabis which could have been produced at the scene and ultimately sold. As the information available to the forensic drugs expert is limited, opinions of Crown and defence experts about potential yields can often vary and crucially depend on the levels of experience and expertise of the forensic experts involved. Cannabis cultivation on a large scale is usually a carefully controlled process as any deviation from optimum conditions could dramatically affect potential yields and the monetary value of a crop. It is important to assess plant yields properly as sentencing and asset seizure (under the proceeds of crime act) depend on crop value.

Established and experienced forensic drugs experts engaged by the defence may also be able to estimate crop values, based on their long-term knowledge of drugs markets and the different types of cannabis products sold in them. Original crop values are usually estimated by police ‘experts’.

Forensic Equity is a leading forensic science service provider, offering forensic scientists of the highest quality to a range of clients within the criminal justice system.

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