Well, maybe not quite but reading the comments by Felicity Goodyear-Smith, GP and forensic physician in the preceding blog on George Gwaze it seems that those like me that swallow stories by new Police Commissioners that things have changed on the subject of past false-imprisonments are not realising that the Commissioners intent is flawed by a systematic abuse of the truth.
Here's what Goodyear-Smith was quoted as saying, 'Goodyear-Smith says she approached HIV experts and pathologists to help but found it difficult to get experts willing to testify. "It is very difficult because if you do come out for the defence against your colleagues you may end up as a pariah."
The question remains how can it be that our Justice system still tolerates a situation so partisan that a Doctor is able to confirm in the case of contradictory scientific findings or opinion that "It is very difficult because if you do come out for the defence against your colleagues you may end up as a pariah." What place can this difficulty have in a modern system of law and what drives it?
Well, only one thing can drive it and that is the pursuit of gaining convictions, and where does that pursuit begin but with investigators already convinced of a particular accused's guilt. So how can a modern police force undergoing changes be expected to function in any other way from Superintendents down if the focus is not on finding the truth but rather on finding the culprit and the evidence that fits that? Simply it can't. In each of the major cases where there has recently been exposed miscarriage of justices, single-minded policing and so forth there has been no top-level auditing, or on site-scene auditing of evidence that might have a different explanation or indicate a different suspect. The reason for this can only be that the from the top down there is no will to hold ambivalence toward evidence but rather a frenzied grasp of what might fit and an avoidance of that which doesn't. That's bad policing and bad policy that surely starts at the top.
This partisanship, grasp of feeling, should have no place in evidence gathering, everything should be dispassionate and no allowance given to 'feelings' or 'hunches' or indications that a certain suspect might be a bad bastard and therefore the one that 'did it.' So evidence is missed, good leads not investigated and as the case comes together so does the expectation that the forensic science will prove the case as well. It all shows a drive toward conviction at any cost, and that a suspect was chosen and the incriminating evidence found while to the public information was leaked in a type of preliminary trial. A man in a bar already knew that a particular accused was guilty because of the sometimes oblique and other times pointed police information fed to the media. And there is plenty of evidence that 'off the record' comments are fed to selected media as a myth is turned into an arrangement of facts and good hard evidence. Why?
Partly because of perceived public pressure to solve major investigations, when in fact there is never sufficient reason, nor should there be any inclination to hasten when time is not an issue - if only for the reason that we see the nightmare proportion of time taken to remedy mojs is diabolical.
I just here mention George Gwaze's case and the report of it in the preceding blog to note that even in our 'modern' times a decision is made on who is guilty then evidence found to support it whilst at all times holding comfort in the fact, as Dr Goodyear-Smith records there is a 'reluctance' by professionals to confront the integrity of forensic evidence least one becomes a pariah. And I also return to the letter written to the Coroner in the Sounds Murder (if even murder was ever proven) that there were no sighting of a ketch apart from 'only' 2 crown witnesses and also noting that it would be inadvisable that the real and 'fragile' heart of the crown case not be examined again by calling to the Coroner's court the 2 prison inmate 'secret' witnesses.
Just the language of this betrays the intent. The mention of witchcraft surrounding rituals in Charlene's death, a black man in a white city. 2 nzers sure they saw a ketch relegated to Coventry because the Crown didn't want a ketch, and the protective nature of needing to looking after 2 witnesses whose evidence might be quoted in the Coroner's Court but not cross-examined. It's a bloody sham. Audit the auditors if they actually do exist. Free police from the burden or misapprehension that the are responsible for making or ignoring evidence by insisting that they gather all relevant evidence and put aside personal feelings about potential perpetrators or about victims - whilst at all times conducting quality and recorded audits.
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