\n<\/p>\n
The miscarriage of justice watchdog is failing prisoners appealing against wrongful convictions because it does not have forensic expertise and will not engage with third parties who do, experts have claimed.<\/p>\n
Advisers to Inside Justice, a miscarriage of justice charity, say that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) relies on legal professionals without a proper understanding of the science that underpins many convictions and appeals.<\/p>\n
Dr Ann Priston, the former president of the Forensic Science Society (now the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences), said: \u201cIt\u2019s so easy to assume that the science has been correctly applied and correctly interpreted. Knowing who to approach and when in this context is key to this problem and that is where the CCRC fails.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite being the only body with the power to request documents and exhibits for further testing, they frequently refuse to do this, arguing that it would be pure speculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cFar too frequently they shelter behind the proposition that since these steps might have been taken by the defence at or before the trial, it is no longer appropriate for access to be afforded, even though objectively there appears to have been a flagrant misunderstanding of this evidence at trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CCRC has faced criticism over its handling of cases including those of Andrew Malkinson, who spent 17 years in jail for a rape he did not commit; and Peter Sullivan, whose murder conviction was overturned in May after 38 years.<\/p>\n
In June, a parliamentary inquiry criticised \u201ccomplacency\u201d with respect to scientific understanding within the CCRC and recommended recruitment of permanent staff members with scientific backgrounds.<\/p>\n
Priston said it would be impossible for the CCRC to have all the different fields of science covered but it was essential that it took advice \u201cfrom people who know better than them\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tracy Alexander, a former president of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences, said that external experts could help the CCRC but Inside Justice\u2019s offers to help had been rebuffed.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cWe\u2019ve said to them on countless occasions: \u2018We have experts in pretty much every field, we are free, why don\u2019t you let us have a look? We\u2019ll advise you.\u2019 And they say: \u2018No, because you\u2019re obviously on the side of the guilty party, and you\u2019ll be biased.\u2019 The whole point of forensic investigation is that you\u2019re not biased one way or the other. You\u2019re supposed to interpret the evidence and then come up with an answer, and if a test will prove it one way or the other, you get the test done.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that the CCRC had hired retired police officers \u201cwho also know bugger all about forensic opportunities\u201d and failed to understand that DNA \u201cis not a barcode of guilt\u201d, given how readily it was transferred.<\/p>\n
Alexander claimed the watchdog was \u201cnot fit for purpose\u201d and yet police forces will not release evidential material directly to prisoners and their lawyers.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut some responsibility on police forces to hang on to their exhibits and then hand them over,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause if somebody can get a decent barrister and a team of experts to support them with further testing, then why are we spending money on the CCRC?\u201d<\/p>\n
A CCRC spokesperson said: \u201cWe regularly engage with external scientific experts during our case reviews. We also use our special legal powers to obtain forensic evidence held by the police.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have recently supplemented our existing in-house expertise by appointing a full-time forensic science and expert evidence adviser to provide support reviewing forensic aspects of cases, assist in devising forensic strategies and engaging with the most appropriate experts to carry out further work on individual cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said casework staff receive up-to-date training on forensic science.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The miscarriage of justice watchdog is failing prisoners appealing against wrongful convictions because it does not have forensic expertise and will not engage with third parties who do, experts have claimed. Advisers to Inside Justice, a miscarriage of justice charity, say that the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) relies on legal professionals without a proper<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[3767,6999,4498,4516,5009,320,6325,12095,7645,12014,1085,2019,12094],"class_list":{"0":"post-19706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-cases","9":"tag-commission","10":"tag-convicted","11":"tag-criminal","12":"tag-expertise","13":"tag-experts","14":"tag-fails","15":"tag-forensic","16":"tag-lack","17":"tag-owing","18":"tag-review","19":"tag-watchdog","20":"tag-wrongly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}