Abstract
This is my chance to introduce myself as the new President of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences (BAFS), taking over from the successful presidency of Tracy Alexander, who has made a huge and positive contribution to BAFS in the past few years. This is a daunting task and big shoes to fill as you will know. I am indebted to Tracy for all her support to date and her commitment to provide me with support going forward.
Coming from Scotland this brings its own challenges but also provides an opportunity for me to bring my thoughts and experience to bear in this role. As a lawyer, my approach will be understandably distinct from those like Tracy as a forensic scientist. Also different from the approach of academics. That, of course, is the strength of our organisation bringing different interests and experience to bear to meet our aims and objectives which are declared and presented on our new website. On that subject, I wish to express my thanks to Andy Duffin for his extraordinary work in bringing this new website into place. This new website offers everyone a much richer and fuller experience. Can ask every member and others to visit the website. If you haven’t done so, I urge you to look again bafs.org.uk. Andy's contract has formally ended but he has continued to offer his ongoing support which I not only welcome but accept.
For an organisation of our relatively small stature, a membership of less than 300, we nonetheless make a significant and important impact in the world of forensic science and in the wider criminal justice system. We meet our declared aims and objectives of education, sharing expertise, providing a place to exchange information and helping the correct set of skills and knowledge to be available for national and international issues in medicine, science, and the law. Our size in comparison to other organisations is an issue we need to address. It is clear that the body of forensic scientists, academics, and lawyers in the justice system far exceeds those currently represented in our membership. Other organisations in this area have memberships not in the hundreds but in the thousands. Part of my aim will be to try and improve our membership level. I also call upon each and every member to reach out to those who are potential candidates for membership and ask!
Our events programme in the last year has been remarkable from looking at forensic specialists, mass murder investigations, identification, asking why history repeats itself, an insight into operation Naseby, pointing out and the importance of the moral compass. Details are all on the website for review. It was an astonishing programme of events, and we now look forward to more events.
Tracy's term of office comes to an end with the BAFS dinner and Ian Dyson QPM speaking on reflections of the past, present, and future of forensics and policing and later the Ormrod Lecture where Tracy comes into her own speaking of international and worldwide forensics. I am very keen to extend our reach internationally and I believe that the awful events in Ukraine and Israel will provide new and further opportunities for this organisation to make meaningful contributions to the highest quality forensic investigation and to provide advice and support as required.
As well as recording this remarkable catalogue events, it would be remiss of me not to point out the contribution made by Lesley Notts who quietly works in the background organising all of this and ensuring that the events take place and take place in a flawless and professional way.
It will have escaped no-one's notice that news of the rape conviction of Andrew Malcolmson who served 20 years for a crime he didn’t commit and similar revelations of miscarriages of justice throughout the United Kingdom including Scotland reveal and underline the need for forensic science to ensure that justice is well served. This benefits both the victim and accused. No matter how great the advocacy skills of lawyers involved in our criminal justice system may be, advocacy can never substitute for the proof of fact by hard science. The frontiers of science are never fixed and our job in this organisation is to share the advances, research, and insights of our members with those in the forensic and justice community that we engage with.
We have interesting projects emerging for the future including an event that I will try and organise at the University of Strathclyde where we will tackle the issue of mental health and crime. How we deal and categorise those with mental health problems falling into the criminal justice system is a hugely important topic. Some police forces will now not respond to calls will be issue is clearly one of mental health. The courts are ill-equipped to deal with those who are mentally ill and said to have committed crimes. The medical and psychiatric community are few and diminishing resources to deal with individuals falling into this category. We need to rethink how we deal with crime, how we categorise it and whether we see some situations as a medical issue rather than something falling into the criminal justice system. We need measurable outcomes, different resources, and different thinking if we are to tackle what appears to be a huge and increasingly significant social problem. I believe we have an exciting future as an organisation, I believe we are relevant and important but wish the encourage everyone to promote this organisation and the values it represents. Only with a mind of the forensic scientist can we begin to analyse and understand these problems, find solutions and measure outcomes.