Now that the Resolven by-election and the European Parliament elections are over, I have been catching up on some of the stories which should have received more prominence when they broke. Among them is the report by their Lordships over the state of the provision of scientific evidence before the courts.
The report draws attention to the failure of the private providers of technical services to keep up with developments in the science, but more importantly to poor management on the part of government. Their conclusion begins:
A free society is dependent on the rule of law which in turn relies on equality
of access to justice. The evidence we received points to failings in the use of
forensic science in the criminal justice system and these can be attributed
to an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding and an insufficient
level of research and development. Throughout this inquiry we heard about
the decline in forensic science in England and Wales, especially since the
abolition of the Forensic Science Service.
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