Investigating Leads

Investigating Leads;

 Investigating leads in the investigation process is one of the most important stages. The investigation of these leads can be done in numerous ways. The different ways this could be done are;

-          Forensic analysis – Forensics investigators will examine and analyse evidence. This could be from the victim or the crime scene and could lead to identifying a lead suspect in the crime.

-          Witness statement – Witness statements can be valuable in the information they provide. These are analysed and any valuable and relevant information from these can be investigated which can also lead to a suspect being identified.

-          House-to-house enquiries – This involves officers knocking on the door of residents apart of the community where the crime has been committed, they do this to try and gather further information and see if anyone knows anything about the crime or witnessed anything.

-          Pathology reports – This can help if there is a death of a victim involved in a crime. The pathology report can determine the cause of death which may lead to a scenario that could have taken place at the crime scene and resulted in a death.

-          Surveillance – The police have the ability to put anyone they think could have committed crime but do not have strong evidence to prove so, under surveillance. This can help identify the behaviour of someone who may have the potential to commit the crime and also can lead to an enquiry in the investigation.

-          CCTV – This can also be used in the investigation to see who was where at the time of the crime and can also identify anyone who was apart of the crime. This can be important for identifying any leads they hadn’t done before hand.

This stage can happen more than once in a crime because they may analyse all their evidence and take a suspect to court. If the court does not prosecute, they go back to analysing this evidence and they may come up with a new lead from doing this process again. This stage is very important because it can also prove to the court that a suspect is guilty providing solid evidence proving their guilt.

In the Madeleine McCann case, this stage was done at fault. Before the police officers had taped off the family apartment which was a crime scene of Madeleine’s disappearance, numerous people had entered the crime scene which could have tampered any evidence they could have used in court if they wanted to prosecute someone. The apartment was closed of and analysed but then re-opened and made available to tourists again, but then closed off a second time for further forensic tests. Due to it being open after the crime would have been committed, any evidence that would have been in the apartment and not gathered at first will be contaminated due to the other people who would have stayed in the apartment after Madeleine’s disappearance. This took place outside of the apartment as well. The Portuguese police did not secure the outside of the apartment with a suspected exit, the window, of which an intruder may have left the apartment with Madeleine. The crime scene including the outdoor window was dusted by officers without wearing protective clothing. This would lead to any evidence that they would collect to be contaminated and invaluable in prosecuting someone in court. Border and marine police were not given Madeleine’s descriptions which would make then unaware if they was to see her being taken across the border. Also the police did not do extensive door-to-door inquiries which could have resulted in them not gaining as much information which could have been very important to the case. Motorway surveillance was not enabled motorway surveillance until the day after the disappearance and not that night. This could have resulted in Madeleine being drove out of Praia Da Luz (location of where she went missing) via the motorway and nobody being aware of this. The company that monitors the motorways claim they were not approached with information of the crime.

From this we can identify that this stage was done at fault and was unsuccessful and if the correct procedures of this stage were carried out correctly, this could have encouraged more inquires in the case and possible leads and maybe even the tracking/finding of Madeleine. For example if the crime scene was closed off completely and nobody other than the forensic team, wearing the correct gear was allowed into the crime scene, the evidence that they may have collected would not have been contaminated and a possible suspect could have been identified.