Charging defence fees waived by Court
It has unfortunately become practice in recent years for labs working for the prosecution to charge the defence to obtain the evidence against their client. We abhor this practice. Congratulations therefore to Dominic Bell (barrister) and Fida Hussain (solicitor) for successfully challenging the laboratory charge and obtaining the laboratory casefile free – as it should be in every case.
We hope that other solicitors will follow suit and eliminate these charges and the inevitable drain on scarce Legal Aid as well as the work spent obtaining invoices and completing Legal Aid requests simply to see the evidence against the defendant.
More>>
Back to top
Talking in Texas on STRmix DNA software
The Texas Forensic Science Commission invited Professor Allan Jamieson of The Forensic Institute to address key laboratory personnel at a symposium in Dallas, Texas. Professor Jamieson is well known for his views regarding the reliability of probabilistic genotyping software. His presentation on STRmix is available online .
More>>
Back to top
TFI Miami
Three scientists from The Forensic Institute flew to Miami in January for the trial of a man accused of a triple homicide. Professor Jamieson gave evidence challenging the reliability of the probabilistic genotyping software used. Dr Bader provided evidence of another ‘unknown male’ whose DNA was present on a T-shirt found at the scene and associated with one of the murderers.
More>>
Back to top
Resistance to forensic disclosure in Scotland continues
TFI wrote to the Scottish Government to request that they instruct the Scottish Police Authority to release information about the testing of new software being used to provide DNA evidence. As usual, we were met with a brick wall. Despite the Scottish Government claims that Scotland has one of the best, if not the best, criminal justice systems in the world, we know that it has the most restrictive disclosure regime for forensic scientific evidence in the advanced world. Our recent, and long-running, correspondence with the Scottish Government is on our website.
More>>
Back to top
|
