Roles and Responsibilities of the Investigation Team - Forensic Scientists

Roles and responsibilities of Forensic Scientists

The forensic scientist team have the important and main role of processing evidence at a crime scene which would hopefully lead to a suspect which would potentially be prosecuted at court. The first role of the forensic team in an investigation would be collecting evidence at a crime scene. It is vital that this evidence is not contaminated because it would not be reliable in court and would be useless in being used to prosecute someone. This might be due to keeping the evidence secured or the way they collect the evidence. The forensic team will often attend the court prosecution and present the evidence they have found and what this evidence suggests linking it to that suspect. They will often go if their evidence is conflicting and they would have to justify their evidence and information based on this before the court dismisses it.

The roles and responsibilities of the forensic team will stay the same and would not change with different crimes because they would still have the prime responsibility in gathering and analysing evidence and producing reports based on their findings. Dependant on the crime that has been committed, the techniques used to analyse the evidence may be different in particular crimes.

In the Madeleine McCann case there were no forensic scientist called to the crime scene. All evidence that was collected was done by the police. In Portugal this can be part of police procedures. Evidence that was collected at the crime scene and in the family vacation car was sent to Forensic Science Service in Birmingham, United Kingdom. This included hair fibres and other fibres that were collected from the apartment and car, sniffer dogs had reacted to this DNA. This DNA was sent for a DNA profiling. The FSS used Low Copy Technique to analyse the DNA sample which is used when only a few cells are available for analysis. The result of this was 15/19 of the DNA components match Madeleine’s. From this forensic evidence the Portuguese police abandoned the idea that Madeleine had been abducted and came forward to Madeleine’s mother, Kate proposing that is she admitted Madeleine has died in an accident in the apartment, she would only serve an imprisonment sentence of 2 years maximum.