Crime Scene Investigator (37 page)

I very nearly didn’t get there at all. I prepared three heavy extra-large holdalls full of crime scene training and investigation equipment and consumables to use on the course. These would also be donated to the Ugandan police at the end of the course. They weighed over 130 kilogrammes which made them many times my baggage allowance. I had arrived at Heathrow two hours early to make sure the bags were checked in OK. I had taken a similar amount to Jamaica the year before with only a small excess baggage fee. This time, however, the official at the Kenya Airways check-in was less amused and requested £1,000 excess baggage fee. We were flying Kenya Airways all the way to Nairobi first and then on to Entebbe. I knew this would eat into the fee. I phoned Suzanne (who was on her way) in the hope that I might be able to use some of her baggage allowance. But she had packed lots of children’s clothing to donate when she got out there. Suzanne had worked before in Africa and knew that such a gift would be valued in the areas where we were going to work. When she arrived she was over her limit too. There was only one thing to do. Negotiate! There was little movement with the Kenya Airways official. I even pleaded with them that this was British Council Aid and was going to be donated when we left, but this cut no ice with them. They were Kenyan and we were going to Uganda, they reminded me. I then suggested that relations with their neighbour might be soured when this got out, but to little effect. I didn’t move an inch. In the end the official called the supervisor for Lufthansa who was overseeing the baggage for the airline. I repeated the story and pulled out every card I could. Eventually they gave in and I got our entire luggage on at no extra cost. It felt like a grand achievement and a good omen for the course.

Once on the ground at Entebbe, we were met by British Council officials and Chief Inspector Willie Punaha. He was the contact point and the senior student on the course. We drove through Kampala, making a detour to Willie’s house to pick up his clothing. It was a salutary lesson seeing how the police personnel and their families were billeted on a police housing compound. Willie was lucky as he had a house for his family but the conditions were very poor. We were made extremely welcome.

It took an hour or so to make the journey to Jinja on Lake Victoria. As we approached the hotel gates I could see a large banner draped across the entrance announcing the course and our arrival. For one second I was frightened that there was some large official welcome, or even a band. Well, there was no band but there was a wonderful welcome which ended a long day’s travel.

The students began to arrive the next morning. They all took advantage of staying at the hotel, which was luxurious compared to their own homes. At the end of the first week some were to bring their partners to stay.

The class was large, over thirty students, and once again the expectations were high. There were only three students who had done any crime scene investigation before. Apart from the basics, they wanted photography, crime scene management, and fire and bomb scene management too. In the pre-course check, Suzanne established that no one owned or used a camera and there was little chance that even if they were able get hold of one, they or their employer would be able to afford the consumables.

So Suzanne and I tailored the content on scene investigation and some management. One of the experienced scene investigators was very approachable, but one of the others pretty negative, so much so we didn’t realise his skills until the course developed. As it did, he came out of his shell and became a great contributor to the course. Once again we took time to develop note-taking and diagram skills, building on them as the course developed until by the end many of the students were proficient.

I felt a sense of unease with the resources that even the experienced guys would have. I didn’t doubt their ability to undertake a competent investigation within their job role, but I didn’t know where they would get help in the way of forensic science support. I left them with the knowledge of what they could do and what science offered beyond their own resources. I also left details of contacts within the UK, from laboratories to training organisations. If they ever got a high-profile investigation, particularly with international dimensions, there would, I hoped, be support to see they got the investigation right. They were committed to this but resources might compromise that commitment.

Suzanne and I hosted a drinks party at the source of the Nile for the course. For the cost of a couple of beers back home we managed to keep the entire course happy for a few hours. On our weekend off we had planned to hire a car and visit the local sites, including the famous Bujagali Falls. When a few of the students heard about it they too expressed their interest. Although only a few miles away, most of the students had not seen the falls either. So Suzanne and I traded our hire car for a coach to take everyone. On the morning of the trip, I was very unwell. I was feeling the effects of the sickness and diarrhoea which both Suzanne and I had suffered all week. In class we had managed to quickly hand over so our discomfort went unnoticed. There were many times when I felt like throwing my food straight down the toilet, cutting out the middleman! However, the trip to the falls was too good an opportunity to miss. So I mustered outside the hotel as a rickety old coach, just big enough to hold the entire course, arrived. I was given the pride of place seat at the front of the coach next to the driver. The back of the seat folded forward but was broken, so I found myself hanging on to the seat and the contents of my intestines for the whole trip. The falls were beautiful and this was mirrored in the expressions of the happy students. We went back to the hotel for lunch. I retired to my room whilst Suzanne and the students went on to another excursion at a local fish factory for the afternoon. On Sunday, Suzanne and I took a boat trip with two of the students around Lake Victoria to the source of the Nile, the place where the lake bubbles over exposed rock to make its journey over a few thousand miles to the sea. The source was marked by a plaque where Speke had found it a hundred and fifty years before.

During our stay we were informed that there was to be a national census and we would have to fill in our details on the day in question for the government inspectors. The record would show our presence in Uganda at that time and record it for posterity. Two questions stood out in my mind. The first was my marital status. Having been happily married for over twenty years I was not impressed with the options: single, currently married, divorced or widowed. The nearest option to reflect my status was currently married but this didn’t sound too hopeful for me. So I crossed out currently and declared that I was married. The second question asked me what tribe I was from. I thought about this for some time before proudly declaring my London roots and that I was a cockney. I hope to look at the records in the years to come to see that there was at least one member of the cockney tribe in Uganda in 2002.

My work as a crime scene investigator has taught me many things. Firstly, there is the absolute need to accurately and methodically record the crime scene, then to observe and listen, plan, act, reflect and review. There is a need to maintain the integrity of notes, photographs and any material that is recovered. This will ensure that the investigation can be examined and re-examined. On this foundation, no matter what scientific practice is applied or subsequently becomes available, there is a known starting point, an anchor. It may alleviate or even stop the most determined conspiracy theorist.

I have been both fortunate and troubled to see the horror and grief of man, humanity at its worst and also at its best. When people rise above the trauma, it is a gift to witness. The search for the truth, although demanded by the vast majority of victims, can also add to their pain.

This was the case with the young woman who had awoken in her basement flat to find a man beside her who then raped her. She was certainly not comforted by the fact that, two months before, a young neighbour, two doors away, had suffered the same fate. Had he been returning to attack the same victim again? It was quite possible. My examination of the scene revealed fingermarks outside the rear window of her flat where the offender had climbed in. Blood grouping obtained from semen found on a vaginal swab taken from the victim revealed that the rapist was a group B secretor, as in the earlier offence. At the earlier scene a colleague of mine had found only one area of a palm print. He had recovered it from the surface of a vacuum cleaner which the offender had pushed away during the violent struggle with the victim.

A dedicated fingerprint expert at New Scotland Yard managed to identify the grubby finger mark which I had found on the outside surface of the window frame. It led to a closer examination of the palm mark, which was also then identified. A suspect was arrested and blood and saliva samples obtained. He was a group B secretor. He denied the offence and stood trial at the Central Criminal Court. On the day of the trial with both victims present, I witnessed him plead guilty to the first offence, the second remaining on file. This meant he was not convicted of raping the second victim and the victim was denied her justice. The fact was that the marks which I had found were outside and although in an enclosed, quite private garden, they still only placed him outside. DNA evidence was many years off. The only comfort was that had I not found the finger marks he would not have been identified as the donor of the palm mark at the earlier offence. This is because it was on an area of the hand which could not at that time be searched.

I still recall the look of despair on the victim’s face as she tried to make sense of what she was going through. The suspect was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for the offence of which he was convicted. The second offence probably would not have added any more time, but that was of no consolation to the second victim. He had not been convicted of raping her. Some twenty three years later as I prepared to write this book, I heard on the radio about a man who had been convicted of a rape in the same area in very similar circumstances. Science, I was told, had convicted him. I immediately recognised the name of the convicted man. It was the same man and my heart sank to think that yet another woman had suffered at his hands.

It is times like those that makes even the most dedicated investigator wonder whether it is all worth it. But it is. Justice cannot be dispensed if the truth is not found and not known. The deficiencies, or what might seem to many as safeguards, of our legal systems are not the business of the investigator and it is best to detach oneself from them.

The scale of the investigator’s task often seems overwhelming. The only way to overcome this is to break the problem down into bite-size questions to which bite-size answers can be found. That is the way to build up a picture which others can see and recognise as sound even if there are weak spots. That is equally important.

The search for the truth is a noble cause. However, not all crime is detected and not all offenders are brought to book. The truth is out there. For every contact there is a trace. For every action there is a reaction and in the reaction there are artefacts. There lies the evidence.

The detection of crime is solely in the hands of the investigator, their skill, tenacity and often luck. If you search hard and wide enough, that luck will also be found.

For those offenders who manage to evade justice on earth there is one last catch. Those who choose a life of crime should remember that there are always two people who will know the truth. The first is the offender. For those of faith there is a second. Although the evidence for the existence of a ‘superior being’ may not meet with earthly legal standards, there is hope and faith. It may seem strange that a man of science may be drawn into such feelings. I draw a distinction between that physical evidence which I would expect and demand in a court of law and that which I feel in my human emotion.

Although some offenders escape the attentions of mortal investigators, there is comfort for the pained and troubled victims of crime, even when there seems no hope of closure. For me there is always a second and final person who knows the truth, the innocent and the guilty, and there is no escaping His investigation and His justice. He is the final arbiter. That person is God.