Top law firm critical of forensic services

A TOP criminal law firm has said the country needs a new independent forensic science service or it risks jailing innocent people.

Robert Eagar, of Garrett Sheehan & Partners, said the current forensic laboratory, based at Garda Headquarters was no help to defence teams because it only acts for police and government services.

He called on Justice Minister Brian Lenihan to provide funding for an independent laboratory and said budgetary constraints were not a legitimate reason to risk miscarriages of justice.

“Clearly the Forensic Science Laboratory is of no help to the defence.

Accused persons facing the huge resources of the state are surely entitled to the services of a [independent] forensic service established by the state,” he said.

Mr Eagar said in the past “three to four years” there has been a huge increase in the volume of forensic evidence relied upon in trials — especially when people are facing rape or murder charges.

He said gardaí now had to place greater emphasis on this type of evidence because interrogations had to be videotaped — this meant more forceful techniques for getting information from suspects was no longer allowed. Mr Eagar was speaking at a seminar in the Law Society chambers in Dublin last night.

It was also addressed by, Jane Bloor, director of the British-based forensic specialists, Keith Borer Consultants.

She said it would save money to retain the services or an Irish-based laboratory because it would shorten the legal process rather than contracting out work on a case-by-case basis.

Garrett Sheehan & Partners regularly seeks the involvement of Keith Borer Consultants to assess forensic evidence supplied by gardaí prior to criminal trials.

However, Mr Eagar said there was inadequate funding for defence solicitors to independently verify evidence.

Each request must be submitted to the Department of Justice in writing and he said there has been problems among some groups in getting paid.

He also said in cases where psychological assessments were required there was not enough money provided to pay for the hours psychologists need to prepare detailed reports and this put defence teams at a further disadvantage.

“Approval has to be sought for every item of work whether by way of independent pathology, psychology, psychiatry, mapping, photography and all forensic scientific work.

“Further difficulties result from the scandalously slow and arbitrary system of payment from legal aid funds... The consequences of nonsensical arrangements such as these have in the past persuaded some of the properly qualified independent forensic scientists to refuse further legal aid work from Ireland,” he said.

Mr Eagar also said there was not enough flexibility in how the department contracted out work and there was an over-reliance on experts from Britain.

This meant specialists from places such as America and Switzerland were being overlooked.