Forensic evidence - Poor system puts justice in jeopardy

The Minister for Justice and the Garda Commissioner will have to treat very seriously the warning by forensic medicine doctors, that crucial evidence in criminal cases will be missed unless the system is changed.

At the moment, because of what is essentially a hit-or-miss situation in regard to the availability of doctors to attend at a criminal scene or to attend victims, very serious criminal prosecutions could be jeopardised.

The implications of an imperfect scheme are potentially fatal for the proper and efficient administration of justice, especially at the upper end of the league of serious crime.

Because of the ad hoc arrangements currently in place, it is likely that victims of sexual crime may not be seen immediately, or examined satisfactorily.

Consequently, Prof Denis Cusack, Professor of Legal Medicine and Head of the Department of Forensic Medicine, UCD, has written to both the minister and the commissioner, suggesting the need for proper structures to be introduced. He spelt out what could happen in the absence of such structures forensic evidence being missed, delays in examining death scenes, and human rights of those in custody being poorly served.

Any structure would have to include satisfactory fees, but obviously the most important aspect as far as the general public would be concerned is that justice should not be jeopardised through the failure of a defective evidence system.

Particularly, in the case of rape which is a horrific crime, the experience of a court appearance is recognised as being almost as traumatic for the victim as the attack. Given the unsatisfactory forensic medicine structure in place, it is possible that a case of that gravity could be undermined by missing evidence, or an inadequate examination.

At the moment, thousands of cases involving drink-driving and speeding are endangered because of perceived flaws within the method of establishing culpability for offences.

To allow more serious defects diminish the prospect of instituting proceedings, or abandoning them, in far more grievous offences, is unthinkable.

Within the scenario outlined by Prof Cusack, it is impossible to be sanguine that the system of forensic medical examiners, as it is constituted at the moment, could unfailingly aid justice.

That being the case, and too often justice is a fragile assertion anyway, there is an imperative on the part of the Government and the Garda Commissioner to establish a proper structure of forensic medical examiners, sooner rather than later.