The police

Members of the Investigation Team

In the Madeleine McCann case, the police were important members who were involved in the case as a whole. The police had the job to determine whether a crime has been committed or not.

The police played an important contribution to the Madeleine McCann case which involved the cordoning off of the scene to stop people from accessing the scene, to keep a log of who had either entered or left the crime scene, and also to collect and secure pieces of evidence.

Although these were the different responsibilities of the police, they were not carried out effectively. The police did not cordon off the scene immediately which meant unauthorised individuals had access to the scene, and no PPE was worn whilst collecting the evidence which meant the evidence was more open to contamination.

The police had the purpose and role to collect and handle evidence in this particular case. These pieces of evidence were;

·         Blood

·         Witness statements

·         Fingerprints

The police in the Madeleine McCann case then had the role of securing this evidence. This meant the collecting of the evidence, the labeling and packaging of the evidence, the handling of the evidence and keeping a chain of custody for those pieces of evidence.

The blood and fingerprints were collected by the police without wearing any PPE. This could suggest that the evidence that the police collected could be contaminated because they did not protect the evidence from themselves.

Witness statements were also taken from various individuals by the police. This was of to good and bad value because these witness statements gave the police more details and information but they were not taken on the night, and some were taken weeks after her disappearance.  This could have meant that false information could have been given to the police because the information won’t have been fresh in their memory.

After these pieces of evidence were correctly bagged and tagged, these were passed on to other individuals on the case which include detectives, forensics scientists and consultants.

These key pieces of evidence were then passed onto different individuals on the case.

The police would have then had contact with detectives and forensic scientist within the Madeleine McCann case. This would be to pass on evidence to the forensic scientist for analysis and to contact detectives who may want to investigate further and to also help the police with their part of the investigation. 

Detectives

The police would have then had contact with detectives and forensic scientist within the Madeleine McCann case. This would be to pass on evidence to the forensic scientist for analysis and to contact detectives who may want to investigate further and to also help the police with their part of the investigation.

Detectives in the Madeleine McCann case were also important individuals in reviewing the case as a whole including the evidence collected by the police. The detectives can also be involved in the collection of evidence and will work in partnership with the police and the forensics scientist to recover as much information and information of the crime as possible.

The detective will keep a chain of custody for that evidence or use the chain of custody provided by the police.

Because the detective can work along side the police, this means that they may have the role to collect, preserve and secure evidence correctly.

In the Madeleine McCann case, the evidence collected by the detectives and the police were tagged and packaged correctly to prevent contamination.

These detectives worked with the police to try and build a case on any suspects of the Madeleine McCann case. These detectives would have kept in contact with the police and forensics scientists on the case to keep up to date with any findings or new leads within the case.

But because the evidence that the police collected from the crime scene, the evidence did not lead to the police and detective building a case profile on a possible suspect because the evidence didn't point to an individual.

Forensic Scientists

The police and detectives will then work with assigned forensic scientists and investigators on the case. This would be to analyse and follow through on the evidence that the police and detectives have collected from the scene.
It is important of the police and detectives to handle these pieces of evidence correctly when giving them to the other parties of the case.
 The forensic scientists have the role in analysing the different types and pieces of evidence. Especially in the Madeleine McCann case, this passing on of the different types of evidence is very important because these types of evidence were sent to forensic labs in Birmingham, United Kingdom and were collect in Portugal. So it was important that this evidence was not mishandled, mistreated or contaminated in this process.
This would be analysing the blood and fingerprints looking for potential matches. The witness statements would also be analysed for any leads or information involving the case.

After this evidence has been analysed, the forensic scientist would report back to the police and the detectives on what they have found and gained from analysing that evidence. This is if the forensic team have found anything from those pieces of evidence, the police and detectives would follow out further enquiries involving that evidence. This could be the forensic team having matched an individual to the crime scene, the police and detectives may go and interview that suspect.

In the Madeleine McCann case, the evidence came back as Madeleine's but this does not point to a suspect because the blood doesn't belong to anyone else. The witness statements also did not lead to the sighting of an individual except for one. The Tanner Sighting was a famous witness report from the case of a man carrying a child in his arms wearing pink nightwear. Although this was stated and informed to the police via a witness statement, the police could not identify that suspect and therefore the sighting was not a lead in the investigation.

The Consultants

Consultants were also involved in the Madeleine McCann case. These were 5 individuals from different job roles who wanted to have their take on the investigation. So this team of consultants would be aware of the evidence the police and detectives obtained that were analysed by the forensic team. This would be so the consultants know what that evidence could have suggested and any leads that the analysis of that evidence led to. This led them to travel to the sight of where Madeleine went missing and wanting to put all the evidence and witnesses accounts together to see if the police or detectives had missed anything out or to see if they could come up with any new theories or ideas of what could have happened to her and have reliable reasons for that. The team looked at the theories the police and detectives came up with, and singled out which one was not as likely using the evidence gained to back it up.

It is important for different parties of an investigation to work together throughout the investigation process. This is because they all have one aim which is to solve the case, but they do this by having different individual roles. From the Madeleine McCann case, we can see that the different members of the investigation team worked together in the various stages.

An example of this would be the witness statements, these would be taken by the police or detectives who then would be processed by them or another party of the team to gather as much information and details from those witness statement. Then if there is information that would serve as being relevant to the case, it would be reported back to the police and detectives to make further enquiries about if there was a sighting in a witness statement and who was witnessed in that statement.

This analysis can then be passed onto consultants or private detectives who may want to dig deeper in the investigation.

If the different members of the investigation team did not work together then different job roles within the investigation will not be able to be carried out. If the police did not work with the forensic team: who would analyse the evidence? If the forensic team found a lead from the evidence: who would follow this lead through?

The different roles all link together in the various stages of the investigation.