Roles and responsibilities of the Investigation Team - Detectives

Roles and responsibilities of Detectives –

A detective is a very important individual when it comes to a crime because they have a very important role of processing the whole case and preparing the case for the court. When in court, the detective will serve a role in making sure the suspect receives the highest sentence they can for the crime they committed. When at the crime scene the detective will perform a thorough examination of the crime scene avoiding contamination, they will work in partnership with the police service and the forensic scientists to recover as much evidence and information of the crime they possibly can. Detective would keep a log/record of all this evidence/information/clues and list possible suspects of the crime and conducts interviews and interrogations. If the detective thinks they have enough evidence pointing to a suspect or suspects, they have the responsibility to make an arrest. From making this arrest, they have to build this case around the accused suspect to be presented in court to press charges. The detective will have the role of presenting the case in court; this will be informing the court of all the details of the investigation including evidence. The crime prevention team will be contacted with the case report and the prevention team and detective will help minimise the risk of the crime taking place again in the future. Throughout the whole investigation the detective has the role of informing the victim of any new leads and of any arrests that have been made. Also the progression of the investigation is to be told to the victim.

The Madeleine McCann family set up a limited company to help fund the search of Madeleine. The donations given to this company helped fund for private detectives to help investigate the crime. Several companies of private detective were paid on contract from this fund for a limited amount of time to help with the investigation. The most famous private detective company funded was Oakley International. This was a Washington D.C. detective agency that was signed for 6months for £500,000. Oakley sent a team consisted of 5 men, led by Henri Exton who was a former British undercover police officer for MI5. This agency engaged in operations within the Ocean Club restaurant and paedophile records and also Roma communities. Henri Exton also looked further and questioned into the reported sighting also known as the ‘Tanner Sighting’. This sighting was of a man carrying a child around 9pm on the night Madeleine disappeared. Oakley International produced e-fits based on the description given of the sighting. These e-fits were kept confidential due to them being crucial to the McCann family and their friends.

More private detectives were issued out to Portugal in 2014 for the renewed investigation of Madeleine McCann.

Although the detective is an important individual in crime investigations, they are not always required in every investigation of crime. For different crime the police force have different specified officers to deal with particular crimes such as sexual assault offences and fire offences. For the crimes the detectives are called out for their roles and responsibilities do not change.  The detective will always have the responsibility to build a case with strong evidence and present this case in court and also reduce crime in general. The detective might also work with private detective companies outside of the police force to help with the investigation.