Checking Masts - CSA

trewmte · 2009-01-13T15:28:11Z

CHECKING MAST - CSASince linking with Jamie Morris at Forensic Focus to create a Mobile Forensics Discussion Forum (http//www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=14) to bring mobile telephone evidence to a wider audience, I have had several discussions with people who are new to mobile telephone evidence and have asked me to provide further discussion on matters concerning Checking Masts. Also from police sections asking me to open up the discussion as to what might happen when Mast checks are not made and how that might impact on a criminal case. Whilst the criminal case discussion is hypothetical, some events happening in the discussion are factual and drawn from a number of criminal cases. The necessity to check with a mobile network operator regarding details of a particular Mast (Cell Site) and the bearing of coverage (azimuth) from it, for a particular Cell ID, at the material time to see whether it has changed prior to conducting cell site analysis is a useful rule to follow. There are, of course, many other matters that need to be checked also, but I have simplified the issues for the purposes of this discussion.The details of Mast changes are recorded by Operators and recorded in their databases. Single Point of Contact (SPOC) is not prevented from asking an Operator about Mast details and obtaining the relevant information. However, as a SPOC doesn’t decide what evidence should or shouldn’t be required for a criminal investigation, the SPOC should be asked to obtain the Mast information.The MastsBelow is an image (a) which displays a Mast's radio coverage for a particular Cell ID illuminating in a westerly direction towards a block of flats.Image (a)The next image (b) below displays the same Mast (as above) relating to radio coverage with its associated Cell ID but this time the radio coverage is illuminating in an easterly direction, in the opposite direction towards a house.Image (b)For the purposes of this discussion the Mast is shown close to the properties in both images. This was done for artistic purposes and is not intended to mean the Mast is actually that close to both properties. Also an actual Cell ID has not been shown but the inference about Cell ID being relevant is inferred by the presence of radio coverage being displayed.Criminal CaseImagine if you will that on a particular date, let us say the 30th March 2008, a dead body is found in the house, shown in image (b). The police have been alerted to the property by a neighbour because of a dreadful smell emanating from the direction of the house. Upon entering the property the police find a decomposing body of a woman on the floor. The Pathologist is called and indicates, following assessment of the decomposing body, that the body had been dead for approximately two weeks. That would generate a time line back to Tuesday 16th March 2008.The police conduct door-to-door enquiries and one neighbour next door but one mentions that two weeks ago as she passed the house there was shouting emanating from inside the property and cries for help. The neighbour thought nothing more of it because the couple that lived there had regular arguments, which the neighbours and passers-by could overhear.The police asked the neighbours had they noticed anything else? One lady who lived a few doors away replied that she looked out of her window and that she had seen the man that lived there leave the property at about 8.30pm, and that would have been a Tuesday, and funnily enough that was about two weeks ago.To cut a long story short, the police found the man who lived in the house a month later, seized his mobile telephone and having retrieved his mobile telephone subscriber details, obtained call records and identified the Masts that routed mobile calls to and from his mobile phone. From the records it was noted that two weeks before the body was found his mobile had used a Mast for a call (on Tuesday at 8.00pm) the Mast was sited 2.4Km away from where he lived with his partner. This was also the nearest Mast to the house.The police called for radio test measurements to be conducted outside the house three weeks later. The time-span from the estimated time of death to radio testing was approximately 9 weeks. The radio tests confirmed that the Cell ID recorded in the call records is the same as detected outside the house.The man, during questioning, confirmed he had not been back to the house since leaving on the Saturday. That being the Saturday prior to the Tuesday when it is approximated the death took place. He had also been living in a Bedsit because the relationship with his partner had irrevocably broken down and they had agreed to split and go there separate ways.The police believed from the evidence that they had thus far that it was enough to hold the man, now a suspect, and the death case turned into a murder case. The evidence they relied upon was1) The neighbours hearing regular arguments and cries for help on the fatef...

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jhup

(@jhup)

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Joined: 16 years ago

Posts: 1442

29/10/2013 12:42 am

AWTLPI, we have had in the US courts some in-dept analysis, at par with our European brethren.

I agree, jury cases can get very simplistic sometimes.

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