The Forensic Institute

Casework

Our Casework services are available throught the UK and abroad. »

'Matters Arising' from casework>>

Our experience as expert witnesses >>

Low Copy Number DNA >>

Comment on the case of Sean Hodgson >>

So DNA is objective? >>

Enquiry form

The easy way for you to make an enquiry about new casework »

WELCOME

The Forensic Institute provides specialist forensic scientific and medical expert witness services, and training in civil or criminal investigations and legal proceedings.

Recent expansion of our services include paternity or kinship testing and workplace drug testing.

In addition to our core scientific staff based in Glasgow, an extensive network of experts and expert witnesses provide the continually expanding knowledge upon which The Institute is founded. Our work includes cases from UK (Scotland, England & Wales, and Northern Ireland), USA (several in New York State), New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, and Cyprus.

Our aims are to;

Provide a comprehensive scientific and medical forensic expert witness service.
Provide training and education opportunities for staff, clients, and the wider community.
Enable and partake in development and research that has actual or potential application in relevant science.

To receive our regular e-newsletter, subscribe here.

From our challenges to the use of the Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA technique in the Omagh Bomb trial to successful shaken baby cases, we believe that the purpose of the defence expert is to identify any credible challenge to the evidence of the prosecution.

Professor Allan Jamieson, one of our DNA experts, was instrumental in the challenges to the use of the LCN DNA technique in the Omagh Bomb trial [R v Hoey] and in the English Appeal Court case of Reed. We have consistently challenged the abuse of the technique in Court.

We have also highlighted problems on other areas of forensic science with our involvement in, for example, shaken baby cases (non-accidental head injury), the 'certainty' of fingerprints, and the 'science' of footwear mark evidence in R v T.

Professor Jamieson is the Co-editor in Chief of Wileys Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences - a five volume work.

"This encyclopaedia is astounding, running to 3,100 pages with over 250 contributors, and leaves, appropriately, no stone unturned or lacking in forensic examination. ...

This is a hugely valuable and worthwhile contribution to any civil or criminal practitioner’s library."*

We welcome contact from potential clients, scientists, and academics who may wish to make use of our services or work with us to further our aims.

*Review in the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland

To follow us on Twitter or Facebook, and get automatic notification of updates to our web pages, just click...

To receive our regular e-newsletter, subscribe here.

And if you want to be more actively involved, we are delighted to announce the launch of our new, free, public web forum to help us achieve our aim of better justice through better science. You are invited to join the FIRN Forum to learn from, initiate and contribute to the topics which will cover almost anything pertaining to the use of science in court.

You can visit the FIRN Forum here.