Members of the Investigation Team

There are many different individuals involved in the investigation of a crime. Each of the individuals involved within the investigation of a crime has their own specific job roles that contribute to the investigation process. These job roles and the cooperation that is carried out with one another ensures that the evidence from a crime remains secure and travels through a secure audit trail, ensuring the evidence is not compromised in any way and that the exact whereabouts of the evidence at each point is recorded. Within any criminal investigation it is important that all of the members of the investigation team work together, this is so that the investigation is carried out effectively and efficiently, when the members of an investigation team work together it is much more likely that a secure audit trail will be established and maintained, this is because all of the members will be cooperating in ultimately ensuring that evidence is kept secure and that the crime is solved and the correct individual convicted for what they did.

The investigation team members involved in the investigation of the Soham murders were;

·         The Police,

·         Detectives,

·         Scenes of Crime Officers,

·         Specialists such as pathologists

·         Forensic scientists.

The first piece of evidence, which can be identified as being handled by different team members involved in the investigation, was the bodies of Holly and Jessica. The Police, Detectives, Scenes of Crime Officer’s and the Pathologist handled this evidence.

The first team members to handle the bodies of the victims were the police, primarily the first attending officer who cordoned the scene off and contacted the appropriate specialists which is the primary job role of the police and this was done correctly. This is done to prevent any unauthorised personnel from entering the scene and contaminating the evidence. As stated, the SOCOs and the pathologist also handled the bodies. These members are tasked with ensuring a secure audit trail, this is because they should guarantee that any evidence on the body is packaged and labelled correctly, they then must ensure that this evidence is checked into the chain of custody – monitored by an exhibits officer the purpose of this chain of custody is in order to record who has handled the evidence, where the evidence was found within the crime scene and also to record where the evidence should go to be processed and analysed. Within the Soham murder case the SOCOs and the pathologist did this correctly and therefore all evidence remained sufficient enough to be used in a court of law.

Throughout my whole investigation there are no reports of any pieces of evidence not being secure. Therefore, I can say the evidence in my case was kept secure throughout the whole investigation. This was done was done in many ways including; Chain of custody, packaging, labelling/tagging, handling and transporting process and personal protective equipment. The evidence was firstly kept secure by the SOCOs through the use of PPE during the collection process at the crime scene. This helps protect the security of the evidence because it prevents any potential contamination at the crime scene. Doing this procedure does not put the validity of the evidence in danger in any way. In my investigation every SOCO who went into the crime scene had the correct PPE on. After the collection of the evidence it is secured further through the use of appropriate packaging which helps protect the evidence by keeping it secure and preventing it from contamination. In addition, packaging also allows officers to determine if a piece of evidence has been tampered with. Forensic scientists helped ensure the security of the evidence because when they were handling the evidence they ensure they wore all the correct PPE to ensure the evidence didn’t get contaminated. Also all the forensic techniques carried out where successful and didn’t destroy any evidence. Finally the evidence was kept secure throughout the whole investigation by maintaining a successful chain of custody. Everyone in my investigation including; the coroner, police, detective, SOCO’s, forensic scientists, private specialist companies etc. will all have been a part of the chain of custody if they handled the evidence. Everyone who received the evidence in this case signed the evidence, this helped keep track of the evidence throughout the investigation and exactly who has handled it to ensure no evidence is tampered with by any unauthorised personnel who have the potential to destroy the evidence. The only mistake that was made in the Soham murders investigation was by the police and detectives as they did not check Ian Huntleys previous convictions etc. before being employed at a school where he met his victims. Also, they did not read Huntleys attitude and follow up on his alibi for the day the girls went missing which furthermore took the police 2 weeks to make an arrest.

Throughout the whole investigation the different members worked together as part of a team. When the investigation first started at the crime scene, the first attending police officer worked with the Scenes of crime officer to establish what had actually happened and what type of evidence they should be looking for. Also, they also worked with the police to discuss their findings at the crime scene. The forensic scientists then worked with the police to relay their findings from the evidence taken from the crime scene.

In addition, the forensics also analysed the infamous Manchester united football shirts found scorched at the scene and shared these findings with the police detectives. The police detectives then worked with a specialist computer company which helped enhance the information on Jessica Chapman’s mobile phone. Furthermore, the police also worked with the coroner to establish the cause of death and time of death. Finally, the police detectives, SOCO’s, Forensic Scientists and the Coroner all worked with the crown prosecution service because they all provided evidence in court to secure a conviction against Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr.

When ensuring a secure audit trail of evidence is established, it can be concluded that some of the members of the investigation team would have been of more value than others. Primarily the most valuable members of an investigation team when securing an audit trail would be the police and the scenes of crime officers. The police would be seen as valuable as they are tasked with ensuring that from the point in which they attend to a crime scene, until any evidence is collected they have to make sure that they protect the scene and the evidence in order to prevent contamination occurring – allowing the evidence to be collected in the same condition that it was in when it was originally found. As this is a highly important role in ensuring that a secure audit trail is established the police as members of an investigation team can be seen as very valuable. As stated above the scenes of crime officers and the pathologist also handled the bodies. These members of the investigation in relation to the bodies are tasked with ensuring a secure audit trail, this is because they should ensure that any evidence on the body is packaged and labelled correctly, they then must ensure that this evidence is checked into the chain of custody – monitored by an exhibits officer the purpose of this chain of custody is in order to record who has handled the evidence, where the evidence was found within the crime scene and also to record where the evidence should go to be processed and analysed.

The other members of an investigation team which have been identified as being valuable in the ensuring that a secure audit trail is established is the scenes of crime officers. They can be seen as valuable team members as if they carry out their job role correctly which involves correctly collecting, packaging and labelling evidence and then submitting it to the exhibits officer to be checked into the chain of custody a secure audit trail will most likely be effective leading to the prosecution of Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr.