The Editor, Sir:

Any lawyer who has been at the criminal bar for any substantial time will be able to tell you of serious doubts which have arisen from time to time regarding the reliability and accuracy of opinions or conclusions reached by scientific experts including handwriting analysts, pathologists, ballistic experts and conclusions based on DNA and other analysis of body fluids. These suspect opinions have often been the evidence on which persons have been convicted for serious crimes and subjected to long terms of imprisonment under the harsh conditions of our prisons.

While one cannot expect the human justice system to be perfect, the principle has always been that there should be enough safeguards, checks and balances and integrity in the personnel who make these life and death decisions so that as far as possible no innocent person is convicted. There have been too many cases in which time and external intervention have exposed that the system has not worked either because of rank incompetence, checks and balances not applied or lack of integrity such as the stifling of information which is favourable to a person accused of crime and could establish his innocence.

Faulty scientific evidence

Apart from the Bob Woolmer fiasco, this newspaper has reported several such cases. In R v Michael Pringle (27 January 2003) the final Court of Appeal, the Privy Council reversed a conviction and sharply criticised the misuse of DNA statistical material and the misinformation given to the jury that quite wrongly linked the accused to the crime.

There are many more examples which could be given in which the shortcomings of the government forensic laboratory has been exposed. What is even more troubling are the potentially hundreds of other cases where accused persons have been convicted on faulty scientific evidence.

I had a case sometime ago in which my client was charged with murder. He was held in custody without bail because according to the police, the forensic scientific evidence against him was so strong. His unmistakable shoe prints were found in the blood beside the body in the house. They know it was his shoe print because it matched exactly the pattern and extent of wear reflected in the blood. They went so far as to bring someone from the Forensic Laboratory to give evidence in a bail hearing and successfully prevented his release.

A day or two later, I made a call to the laboratory and spoke to the star expert witness who had given evidence. I asked him to recap all the material on which he relied as I intended to call in a foreign opinion. All of a sudden our local expert started to sing a different tune, now he told me he had checked again and the shoe print did not in fact match.

Case discontinued

This revelation never formed any official report to the court and the expert was not recalled to give further evidence. Luckily, the court eventually accepted my recall of the telephone conversation and my client was eventually given bail and the case against him discontinued after a few more months.

Differences between scientific men are not unusual. However, that is not the point. What these cases illustrate is the danger of any one side having a monopoly or control over the scientific process. All the examples of faulty reports have involved experts from our GovernmentForensic Laboratory.

There is clearly an urgent need for a review our collection, storage and preservation of evidence and significant steps taken to set up an independent forensic laboratory and to make available to poor defendants, on a routine basis, the facility fo opinions.

In the examples given, justice was done because a second opinion was available or threatened. In the reported and known cases of faulty, perverted or incompetent expertise, the exposure usually comes after the accused usually of limited financial resources has spent considerable time in custody , his or her reputation has been destroyed and often without any accessible avenues for redress.

Not good enough!

I am, etc.,

JACQUELINE SAMUELS-BROWN

Kingston