Hi
Does anyone have experience of having forensic materials dispatched to them from another country and then having forensic seals etc. possibly broken by Customs thus weakening use in Court?
Best wishes
Evidence handling 101 applies here.
Photograph and document the condition of the evidence and any seals on your receival. Make no assumptions about who or when the seals may have been damaged, carry out your work as normal and ensure the evidence is seal correctly (again photograph and document) when it leaves your custody.
Job finished.
At the end of the day it's not your problem to comment on the condition of the evidence while it is not in your custody.
Cheers for that.
Have spoken to some others who say stuff sent by DHL etc. usually goes through Customs without problem as long as xray matches description i.e. 'Computer Hard Disk'.
Be interesting to see if others have experience as I'd hate to waste time on a case that gets discredited due to something I should have realised.
rgds
