Forensic Services – Scene Examination update

Forensic Services prioritises scene attendance requests taking into account:

Crime/event type

Risk of loss of potential forensic evidence

Presence of a Police Scotland Crime Scene Manager (generally more serious scenes)

Skills and competence required by the attending Scene Examiner

Impact on Police Scotland resource (e.g. Police Officer standing by)

Scene Examination resource level may influence the attendance timescales/sequence but does not affect the prioritisation.

All incidents where a Police Scotland Crime Scene Manager is deployed, other serious crime, critical incident scenes, and those requested by the PIRC are always defined as higher priority.

Less serious crime scenes will be prioritised taking into account:

Restricted availability of victim/complainer/accused.

Proximity to other existing scene requests

Risk of loss of potential forensic evidence.

We also prioritise scenes where the public are affected to try to minimise disruption, such as scenes relating to:

Common stairs

Streets/paths

We prioritise other attendances, such as Post Mortems to support the small team of Pathologists to maximise their efficiency.  

Lower level crime scenes, which generally result in limited forensic value, are not routinely attended unless Police Scotland demonstrate potential for forensic evidence recovery.