Crime Scene Investigator (23 page)

The diploma was founded to test and encourage the development of crime scene investigators. The process was developed to involve examinations in theory and practical application. There was also an interview for the candidate in front of a panel of examiners of which one was a crime scene specialist. The other two members of the panel were from other areas of the Society and could be a forensic scientist or an academic. This was to ensure the roundness of the applicant. It is difficult to test ethics but throughout the process the candidate would have to face difficult questions and dilemmas, the answers to which would demonstrate their professionalism and impartiality. This was not only about what evidence they would find but equally, if not more importantly, how they would look, and what the answers meant and what they would do with them.

The diploma had strength because it was awarded independent of employment. This was not in-house accreditation but an award by the Society and its varied membership within the sciences and professions. A key challenge for me was to ensure that any aspects of practice specific to one or only a few organisations were not accepted to the disadvantage of other candidates. Many organisations develop practice to meet their own needs, but this is organisational plumbing and not reflected in other places undertaking the same work. So there was a need to strip off practice and perhaps procedures and look at the basics of integrity, sound practice and underpinning knowledge and values. This became even more important when the diploma received interest from the Society’s overseas membership. The legal environment in which the candidate worked would vary. Although aspects of law could not be specifically tested, the candidate needed to demonstrate that they understood the legal framework in which they worked and the implications to the evidence which they sought and presented.

One of the questions students on the Scene of Crime course at Hendon in mid 1980 were asked in the examination was, ‘What is the phone number of the Fire Investigation Unit?’ as if this was an underpinning principle of forensic science. So no questions like that would be relevant to an international vocational qualification such as the diploma. Likewise I recall in a test on the course I took in 1980 a question asking me to list the eleven people who should be present at an exhumation. There was nothing about their role, the answer required was just a list. So I just began to list those whom I could remember: the coroner (to witness and supervise the investigation); the senior investigating officer (who investigates on behalf of the coroner); the cemetery superintendent (to identify the correct grave plot); the original undertaker (to identify the coffin); a photographer (to photograph the process); a scenes of crime officer (to take soil samples around and underneath the coffin, particularly in poisoning cases); a pathologist (and if possible the original pathologist who would undertake the further postmortem examination). Having named seven, I was by this time drying up so I suggested four gravediggers. You can never have too many gravediggers at an exhumation, I suggested. Well my tutor was not impressed with this, although it brought howls of laughter from my classmates. He thought I was being flippant. I suggested that if I had been flippant I would have included the deceased as one of the eleven. What I learned from this was that testing investigators wasn’t about empty lists but about purpose and principle and how they could be achieved and recognised. So it is the role of the people present that is important, rather than just their presence, which ensures that all the investigative requirements are met. If by chance one person is missing, I would want to know who can undertake that role and keep the investigation on track.

It would take three years for the work of the committee to be complete. The first examination for the Diploma in Crime Scene Investigation was held in 1990. The diploma was to become well established and is now held by successful candidates around the world. I was proud to notice that within two years we would have successful candidates on four continents.

In the UK the need for accreditation of crime scene personnel grew and other awards and diplomas followed. Namely these were the University of Durham Diploma in Scientific Support Skills, National Vocational Qualifications and then a host of university undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. More recently, accreditation of those in the UK practising in the forensic sciences has been possible through the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners. The Forensic Science Society is now a professional body and offers membership and fellowship to suitably qualified members. As a practitioner and later manager I welcomed and supported the movement to independent accreditation. It was something that my bosses back in my days in the Met could not understand and would not support.

Back then, my involvement in the diploma was met with a frosty reception by the Head of SO3 Branch at New Scotland Yard. He ruled over a branch made up of fingerprint, crime scene and photographic officers. He was a fingerprint officer and at that time the branch was embroiled in a painful battle which would require the need for all SOCOs to be trained for a five-year period to become fingerprint experts like their fingerprint officer colleagues. The two groups would be brought together as one and renamed identification officers. To me it was a clear example of not listening to the needs of those working within the field. Instead, it felt to me and my SOCO colleagues that our noses were being rubbed in the dirt and that fingerprint officers were better. Fingerprint identification is an important police science, albeit one operated outside the main forensic science community and by many who would not then have considered themselves or be considered by others as scientists. Therein lay the problem. It was probably from insecurity that the head of SO3 Branch and his close advisers (who were greater in number within the branch) felt the need to subsume the crime scene into the fingerprint field.

As a fledgling manager it struck me as an incredible waste of time, money and resources. Every SOCO (and there were over 200 of us) would each be trained for five years so that we could present the marks we found at court. That would be over 1,000 man years. In reality the existing 150 or so fingerprint experts already identified marks submitted to the branch by SOCOs and a smaller number of experts were needed to present the evidence at court. I had no problem with receiving training in better ways to develop and evaluate marks at the scene, that would increase quality, but full expertise was not needed. I had already realised that well-motivated and active SOCOs were better at finding finger marks because they did it every day. They constantly improved their skills. The identification officer programme ran for ten years before the truth came out and the Met once again recruited directly and specifically officers who were SOCOs in all but name and who did not need to undergo fingerprint expertise training before they were let loose on crime scene. The training was reduced from over four years to a matter of months.

I was not a supporter of the identification officer programme and was never to join. However, having worked as a professional for over ten years and felt the beating in court from having no external accreditation of my skills, I thought that was where the need lay. Professional development and external accreditation, that is what was required.

My elation at being invited to join the Society’s diploma committee was soon dampened. It was obvious from the outset that the Head of SO3 Branch did not approve of external accreditation. If anyone was to accredit Met personnel it was going to be him. He missed the point completely. It was the independent part, with participation of scientists, lawyers, academics, police and independent experts, which gave it its strength. The dinosaurs at the top of SO3 could not see that. They were stuck in the authoritarian era of post-war Scotland Yard and their only concession to the fact that this was no longer the 1950s was that they had stopped wearing hats.

Within a year, I was using ten days of my precious annual leave to attend the meetings up and down the country to prepare the award. It was a strain but, either through bloody-mindedness or stupidity, I continued.

To aid my preparation for the first examinations I went to Tottenham Court Road in London and purchased, at the personal expense of £500, an Amstrad word processor. The lack of support from my employer made me a little bitter but I was determined to see this through. Looking back I realise that this helped my career and my approach to it. I had always suffered from one small disadvantage. My handwriting had always been atrocious. My brain worked faster than I could write and it wasn’t until I began to type that many realised I couldn’t spell either. But I improved and this marked the beginning of a time where I could express myself and communicate in writing with others as I ascended the professional tree.

After three years’ work (and many days of leave!) we were ready to offer the first diploma examinations. No support from the Met meant that no examinations were held there. On a late summer’s day in 1990 simultaneous examinations were held in Harrogate and Surrey in the UK and in Hong Kong and Australia. I completed a night duty at New Scotland Yard and then drove down to Reigate Police in Surrey where two Surrey and one Met officer took the diploma. Surrey Police provided the room and I supervised the examination.

A short time later I once again officially wrote to the head of SO3 Branch. I could now demonstrate that the diploma was a reality. It was also a first. It was the first diploma of its kind in the world and it had attracted international interest.

I was called to see the head of SO3 Branch and met him in his grand office at New Scotland Yard in London. He would not entertain the idea and his opposition was clear. In the privacy of his office he gave me a stark warning. Either I would cease my work on the diploma or my career and any hope of progress would end there and then. I was taken aback by the comment, but I was too fired up, too committed. I looked him straight in the eye and with a little nervousness but with conviction said I would continue, ending with the words, ‘history will say who was right’.

A few weeks later the registry file from New Scotland Yard landed on my desk at Kings Cross with the official rejection, but obviously without the threat.

I minuted the file with the words, ‘In the absence of your support I thank you for your time.’ One of my managers up the food chain, himself a fingerprint officer, later gleefully congratulated me on my bold putdown.

Fate provided me with a lifeboat, although I wasn’t to know that when I had spoken to the head of SO3 Branch. Surrey Police had advertised for a scientific support manager to head a new department. I had originally applied but I had been sifted out before the interviews. However, no one was appointed. All those interviewed were forensic laboratory scientists who were not entirely committed to developing the new scientific support department there. One candidate was offered the job. He was from another smaller force and although he had no forensic science or crime scene background he was a manager of the scientific support department there. He negotiated a better salary back in his own force and didn’t take up the Surrey offer. Within two months Surrey Police re-advertised the post. They had clarified what they wanted. I phoned to see if they would reconsider me.

Throughout my time as an investigator and particularly during the work preparing the diploma, I had pondered at length on the role and purpose of crime scene investigation and where it sat within the overall process of criminal investigation. Often I would lie awake at night, unable to sleep, thinking about how we could do things much better. The planning and order which I developed in my subconsciousness led me to seek the role of manager and not just supervisor. I wanted desperately to get involved with the planning, development and implementation of a better system of delivering forensic science to the police and courts. Surrey was going to be my chance.

Five candidates were interviewed, made up of crime scene personnel seeking promotion like myself. One candidate was the soon-to-retire detective inspector from the Laboratory Liaison section at the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory. He had over thirty years’ experience and he was the favourite as far as I was concerned. I hoped that I offered the future as well as just a safe present.

I was interviewed by two detective superintendents, John Milner and Pat Crossan, at Surrey Police Headquarters in Guildford. The head of personnel completed the three-person panel. John Milner was the chairperson and he played things pretty straight. As I walked into his office where the interview took place I had an overcoat draped over my arm and I was carrying a briefcase. John took my coat and carefully hung it in his wardrobe. Pat Crossan was more inquisitorial and prodded me with some subjects which were controversial. He wanted me to open up and on one subject I disagreed with him and gave my reasons for doing so. I quickly realised he liked the competition and wanted a strong character. My solid operational background and time on the Flying Squad stood me in good stead. My managerial background was relatively modest, but my work and drive developing the Society’s diploma showed that I was progressive in my field. Surrey had hosted a site for the diploma examinations the year before when two of its SOCOs took the examination. It had been John Milner who had supported his staff. By luck, on the very morning of the interview, an article which I had written, was published in
The Police Review
. It was called ‘Setting Standards’ and I made sure to mention it in the interview.

The interview went well and the following morning I received a call from John Milner offering me the job. I shook as I took the call at my desk at the Met Police Laboratory. It was a good two-grade promotion for me. My Met Police SOCO colleagues looked on in anticipation. Given the battle we had had, and my personal battle with the then head of SO3 Branch, I was a bit of a hero. So for a second time I found that I was a second choice, but that didn’t bother me. I didn’t hold that against Surrey either! I knew I was right for the job and I was determined to do it well. I negotiated a good salary, much better than the one the first successful candidate had done. He was later to lose his job back at his old force within a couple of years when he didn’t make the mark.