Scenes of Crime Officer

Scenes of crimes officer often referred to as SOCO’s are specialised officers that attend crimes scenes to collect and secure potential evidence. There primary role is to protect any evidence from being contaminated at the crime scene by wearing personal protective equipment (PPE). This equipment includes latex gloves, a protective suit, glasses and shoe protectors. The equipment ensures that the individual doesn’t contaminate any potential evidence, which would hinder the case. The SOCO is also responsible for creating a common approach pathway; this is to ensure that individuals who enter the crime scene are able to access different locations without contaminating any evidence. Once they ensure that the evidence is protected against contamination they are the responsible for collecting any potential evidence in the crime scene which may be of assistance later in the investigation. They will look for different types of evidence, (physical, chemical and biological) depending upon the crime scene itself and will be considered as important. Once they’ve identified evidence that is of use it is their responsibility to securely collect the evidence by placing it in appropriate evidence collecting bags, and ensuring that it is labelled correctly.

The scenes of crime officer responsibilities will remain the same regarding different cases, as their primary role is to preserve and collect evidence that may be of relevance to the case. However the evidence they collect will differ depending upon case. For example if there was a kidnapping essentially they would look for fingerprints or high fibres which may have been left behind by the suspect, whereas if it was a murder scene they would be looking for blood splatters, or a potential murder weapon. However the scenes of crimes officer may not always be called to the scene due to the cost not being able to be justified.

Referring to the Paul Morin case there was several scenes of crimes officers that all collected different pieces of evidence that they identified as important regarding to the case. Firstly when Christine Jessop the officers did not take any fingerprints or evidence from the suspected abduction site of the young girl therefore they initially failed out their responsibility. Secondly, when they were collecting evidence from the site that Christine Jessop’s body was found, the officers did not wear PPE, therefore contaminating the scene and any evidence they collected. This meaning that the evidence should not have been used as evidence in court as it cannot be considered reliable. Also when the officers collected the evidence they did not securely bag up the pieces of evidence. As they didn’t fill vital information in such as the time/date, location and who bagged the evidence. The evidence bags also contained more than one piece of evidence, therefore promoting cross contamination.