Victims of crime ‘failed by forensic service’

MANY vulnerable victims of crime throughout the country are being failed by the forensic medical service, the Irish Medical Organisation conference in Killarney has heard.

Denis Cusack, professor of forensic and legal medicine at UCD, said the service was, at best, “ad hoc and patchy”.

He called on the Department of Justice to act immediately to ensure that a proper service was put in place.

While there had been many changes in the administration of justice in Ireland in recent years, the gardaí and the public had been denied a quality forensic medical service to meet the needs of the modern policing environment, according to the IMO.

“The police service is called on to offer a uniquely diverse range of services to the public from simple ones such as issuing licences for firearms to dealing with accidents and crimes against property and to dealing with the human problems of crimes against the person,” said an IMO position paper.

“The Garda Síochána has discharged this wide range of services in an exemplary fashion since its foundation,” it added.

“The demands of society on the police service has changed and the complex social and medical problems which they encounter today require a modern forensic medical service on which the gardaí can rely on for support and assistance.”

The conference was told many of the crime scenes gardaí attended required the expertise of medically qualified personnel.

The gardaí needed professional help so they could offer the victims of crime the best possible service.

The organisation said that, currently, doctors and gardaí were placed at a severe disadvantage in attempting to deliver a modern service for the victims of crime and those who are detained.

Prof Cusack said there was a reliance on doctors from outside the jurisdiction and better contracts need to be offered to doctors with a special interest in forensic medicine to improve the current situation.

The IMO estimates that 10 full-time and 26 part-time forensic medical practitioners are needed.

Among the many sensitive problems which forensic medical practitioners have to treat are allegations of abuse and assault, the examination of detainees, the collection of physical evidence — often of an intimate nature — the provision of professional and expert testimony and medical reports.