There are, as I have shown, many problems concerning the use of forensic evidence both in court and before a case arrives in court. However, this issue has been raised, and so solutions have been found, although some of these problems still seem to be unsolvable. In 1991, the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice was announced. It is not insignificant that this took place after the release of the Birmingham Six - the reliability of forensic evidence was of great importance to the commission. It highlighted many problems that can be found in the system, and from interviews and questionnaires with all those involved in the process, a number of solutions have been developed.

One of the problems that was highlighted was the problem that forensic evidence is often kept in the control of the police, and that this causes problems for the defence. Better communication between all parties involved would perhaps help to solve this problem. It has been discovered that often once a case has been passed from the police to the Crown Prosecution Service, the police lose interest in the case, and are often obtuse in their consequent dealings with it. This wastes time for all concerned - if the CPS are the ones who ask for an expert, nothing can take place until the police hand over the evidence. If communication was better between these agencies, forensic science evidence would be used in an advantageous manner in more cases.

A problem that also seems to involve the police is the availability of expert witnesses. As I have pointed out, the defence does not like to use the FSS but alternatives are hard to come by. There are two solutions to this problem. Firstly, education of the defence as to the way the FSS works could be invaluable. They are only police orientated, because the police are the people that use them the most. Like all scientists the FSS are no less likely to be fair and impartial. This may not change the situation immediately, but it could alleviate it.

Another alternative is to have Crown forensic scientists. These are scientists that are provided by the Crown and have allegiance to neither the prosecution nor the defence. The defence could then rely on them without worrying about prejudice or bias. However, this would be expensive, and in reality there is already one of these available - the FSS. To enable the defence in particular to get in touch with a forensic science expert with relative ease, the best thing to do would be to produce a list of experts who are willing to do defence work, and who are qualified to do the work that is needed. This list would show what areas of forensic science the particular scientist is an expert in, the region he is based in, and the price that he charges. If such a list were established, the defence would find it easier to locate an expert willing to work for them. Also they would be assured that the expert really knew what he was doing, and would not fabricate the evidence, just so that his name became known, as a few scientists may be willing to do.

Financial constraints are often a great problem, for both the prosecution and the defence. Since 1991 when the FSS started to charge for its service, even the police have had to pay for tests to be done on evidence. The defence must also pay a forensic expert to do the work, and this is very expensive. To solve this problem, Legal Aid could be applied for. In the majority of cases, it will be granted. However, application for Legal Aid is a time consuming process. The case has to be considered before Legal Aid is granted, and this may well hamper the proceedings of the investigation. If a forensic expert cannot be consulted until Legal Aid is granted, the investigation on the part of the defence may stand stagnant for several months before it can proceed. This may well mean that the forensic expert only has as little time as a month to carry out all the necessary tests before the trial date. Indeed, it has been known for the defence expert to be contacted during the trial itself. The tests may be completed in a short time, but it may have been a struggle for the forensic scientist to do so, thus compromising accuracy.

There are a few possible solutions to this problem of time. For example, in 1991 a new process of DNA profiling was introduced, enabling DNA to be analysed in a matter of hours as opposed to days or weeks. This means that the prosecution does not take as long with the evidence, and so the defence is informed about it earlier. It states in the Crown Court (Advance Notice of Expert Evidence) Rules that the evidence should be disclosed to the defence "as soon as practicable", but this is often too late. It was suggested in a Royal Commission study that certain evidence should not be admissible to the court if the defence have not had sufficient time to do their own assessment on it. It is also suggested that the court could be adjourned so that this work might take place. This would increase the time in which the defence may assess evidence, and it would not prejudice the defendant�s case. Obviously it is not the answer to the problem in every case, but for some, if the adjournment is allowed, it will solve the problem.

As I have discussed, the problems for forensic science and the scientists do not stop outside the courtroom. There is the problem that a scientist may be daunted by the whole courtroom experience, and not know what to say or expect from the opposition. An easy solution to this that is already in existence is the pre-trial meeting between the expert witness and the side concerned, which I discussed earlier. As well as preparing the witness, this will also prepare counsel as to the contents of the expert evidence, so that unnecessary explanation does not have to take place during the trial. This is the best solution to the problem. Counsel does not always know they are allowed to do this, as this type of meeting is an exception for expert witnesses. This also increases the possibility of manipulation of the expert witness by the counsel, and it might give them unnecessary background information, thus making them biased.

If an expert witness is not given this opportunity, although it should be available to all, they must work on their own initiative to find out important information that might help them in the trial. The bare facts of the case they are dealing with may be enough for them to know how relevant and important their information is to the case. If they are anxious as to what a courtroom atmosphere is like, they can sit in on other cases during trial, to get the feel of the adversarial system. However, these solutions are not as useful as the pre-trial meeting is, and I believe this to be the best solution to his particular problem. These meetings already exist, but do not take place often enough due to lack of time, or fear of manipulation, which is more often than not unfounded.

As I have already mentioned, presenting the case clearly to the jury is very important, as it is the jury who make the decision to charge the accused. The expert witness initially writes a report, which may well involve the problems discussed above. To solve these problems the FSS have certain guidelines to aid in writing reports. They are usually written in the form of "s9 statements". This creates an amount of uniformity, and helps the scientist to make sure that important information is not excluded. However, the problem then arises of whether the report should be simplified or written in full, which may lead to discrimination of information, because the report has to include some sort of conclusion to the investigations. This has to be expressed as a confirmation or denial of the theory, even if their investigations are in fact inconclusive. The only way in which this can be done effectively is by a balance of probabilities at the end of the report.

An overall solution to all the problems mentioned so far would be to establish a completely independent forensic science service, clearing the problems of potential bias or manipulation. It could be appropriately publicly funded, and available for everyone, therefore overcoming the problem of waiting for an application for Legal Aid to be allowed, and spending time looking for appropriate experts. The scientists would be available to be witnesses in court, and be knowledgeable about the whole judicial process. To make the process fairer, and more geared towards finding the truth as opposed to proving someone guilty, the scientific evidence gathered by such scientists would be available to both the prosecution and the defence.

Less obvious but equally important problems can be found in the practise of balancing probabilities, and using statistics as evidence. The databases that are used for DNA profiling statistics for example can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The scientist can use them in a narrow way, saying that the accused is of Scandinavian origin, or he can say that the accused is of the more general European origin. The way in which the statistics gathered are used may change the probability in some way, making it seem more likely that the accused was the only possible guilty man when actually there are more men who could be guilty.

One possible solution to this would be to make more detailed databases, so that the scientist can use detailed databases to get accurate results. These databases would need to be divided into different races in different locations, which may bring problems of racial discrimination. This would mean a lot of data collection. It might even be possible in the future to collect a DNA sample from everybody, so that when looking for a match, the statistics could show a proper likelihood ratio of whether the accused is in fact guilty and the relative strength of the evidence.

Statistics do not only occur where DNA evidence is present however. It occurs in all types of forensic science. For example the likelihood that the glass found at the scene of a crime is also found on the sole of the accused�s shoe can be shown. There are some databases that can be used to interpret and work out these sorts of statistics. Many of these are quite old, and no longer substantial. To solve the problem of dubious statistics a lot of background work would have to be done, in order to create a database for such things. There is not much else that can be done about this at present, although it is a very important area of forensic science.

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