Members of the Investigation Team

During a crime scene there are various members of the investigation team that work together to ensure that everything goes smoothly when evidence is collected, also certain members of the investigation team deal with certain aspects of the scene and this is because they will be trained to carry out certain aspects. In the Billie-Jo Jenkins case there was only two significant pieces of evidence that was found and these where a tent spike and blood splatter on Sion Jenkins clothes, so with these two pieces of evidence found certain members of the investigation team would carry out a specific role to ensure that all evidence is taken from these objects to aid in their investigation. For example the First Attending Officer (FAO) contributed by securing the scene and protect any vital evidence by using police tape to stop anyone entering or exiting the scene, protecting evidence and also logging in and out anyone that is part of the investigation team aiding with the crime scene. Once the FAO has secured the scene and evidence more members of the investigation team will contribute to the investigation to find out more information and with the Billie-Jo Jenkins case being very high profile due to it being a murder case, with the minimal evidence found specialist investigation teams where called upon to contribute towards the investigation. The specialist team that was called upon was forensic scientists and the reason why was to look at the blood spots that were found on Sion Jenkins and contribute by passing information to the police about who’s blood it is, how the blood could of got there and possibly make links between the other piece of evidence and the blood spots found. The police also contribute to the investigation because they are the first people to know about the crime that has happened and are the root source of investigations as they provide the information to officers and other members of the investigation team about the crime that has been committed, they are the first to arrive at the scene so any information that they can find will be vital to the investigation; this can be in the form of witnesses or evidence at the scene. This is where it then links back to FAO’s because they were first at the scene, so any information that other members of the investigation team need to know the will consult the FAO. There are also other members of the investigation team that contribute to the investigation and these others are detectives, sketch preparer, photographer and Scenes Of Crime Officer (SOCO’s) these all contribute in different ways and the way this is done is via their job role. Detectives contribute by asking everyone questions about what they might know about the issue or issues that have happened they will speak to the police, witnesses and even the media if they are there, they will speak to anyone that may potentially know or have seen anything. A photographer is another member of the investigation team and they will take a photo of the scene so that when other members of the investigation team want to look at the crime scene they can see where evidence is any potentially find information, this is how the photographer contributes because the photograph is taken before any one has entered the scene gather evidence.

Sometimes not all members of the investigation team are needed on certain investigations and this mainly links to specialist investigation teams and there are reasons why, for example specialist teams cost a lot of money due to the procedures that they carry out for example Forensic Scientists work on evidence so if the SOCO’s are struggling to find evidence of objects that they have found from the crime scene they would have to send it to a specialist who will use certain chemicals and equipment which cost money. Although these specialist teams are a great aid to investigations due to their price they will only be used in high profile cases like the Billie-Jo Jenkins case.