The UK’s forensic science system faces a crisis, including a digital forensics backlog exceeding 20,000 devices that has barely improved for years, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has reported. The peers complained of ‘abdication of responsibility for forensic science’ in government.
While the Government has acknowledged that reform is needed and the recent Policing Reform White Paper is a welcome first step towards fixing the system, in particular by providing forensics on a national basis, action and details are needed, according to the report.
Chair of the Science and Technology Committee Lord Mair said: “As the forensic science system continues to atrophy despite repeated warnings, creeping neglect is beginning to resemble a shocking abdication of responsibility by the Government, and is a national scandal in the making. If this decline is allowed to continue, further miscarriages of justice are inevitable.
“We welcome the direction of travel in the recently announced policing reforms white paper, which presents opportunities for change such as establishing a national forensic science service and rationalising the current complex patchwork of police forces. However, the details on how forensic science will operate within this new system, and critically, how its independence from the police will be safeguarded, remain extremely vague, as do the timelines for implementing these changes. These much-needed and long overdue reforms must not be allowed to be kicked into the long grass.
“The need urgently to address the issues our inquiry has identified within the forensic system, both now and as part of these wider reforms, is critical if we are to fix and rebuild what has become an increasingly dysfunctional pillar of criminal justice in England and Wales.”
Among the committee’s findings, a fragmented national approach to evidence storage is a severe risk to the criminal justice system. Since the closure of the Forensic Science Service in 2012, responsibility for storing forensic evidence is dispersed across 43 police forces and multiple forensic service providers, producing inconsistent practice and standards, including loss and improper storage of exhibits. This can lead to the collapse of criminal prosecutions. The committee calls for an independent national storage capacity.
For the 80-page report, visit the parliament.uk website.
