The Scenes Of Crimes Officers (SOCO's) attend a crime scene in order to preserve, collect and examine evidence within that scene for use in a court setting at a later date. SOCO teams work with investigators and police in order to gather any related evidence to the case that may be of use for the prosecution in court as well as to help understand what happened. It is the responsibility of the SOCO's to ensure no evidence is contaminated, damaged, overlooked or lost at the scene. SOCO teams work alongside police at any investigation involving serious injury/fatalities as well as any criminal investigation so whether it be a traffic collision or a murder if it's a serious investigation SOCO's will be there.
In the case of a fire investigation, SOCO's will be required to work alongside all the agencies involved as they are the agency that will come into contact with the evidence found at the scene first as it is their job. This means that throughout the investigation even if it isn't deemed arson the SOCO's will be required to hand over a report to everyone from the fire investigator (who they'll work alongside with the closest) to the insurance loss adjuster (who they'd probably never even have to meet during the investigation).
SOCO's have strict procedures when approaching any scene investigation so as to ensure the preservation of any potential evidence at the scene. These procedures include talking to the First Attending Officer (FAO), working with the police force, in order to ensure that all the SOCO team is fully aware of the what has happened, what to expect and what evidence to prioritise and look for. The team would then get into Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) in order to ensure protection from any chemical biological or physical evidence they may come into contact with such as fire accelerants that may be dangerous to inhale but also to protect the evidence from contamination from the SOCO's body. Ensuring the Crime Scene is secured within the correct parameters of the incident (if it hasn't already been done then the SOCO's would do this) the team would go on to set up a Crime Scene Log for a police officer to keep track of whoever enters and exits the scene and who ensures that only authorised personnel are allowed on the premises.Going on to enter the scene in order to set up a Common Approach Path (CAP) to allow the free movement of the team throughout the scene without the risk of contaminating the evidence. Later down the line, it will also allow fire investigators and criminal investigation officers to enter the scene safely without contaminating the evidence. The team would then begin writing up an initial scene assessment detailing every aspect of the scene and all proceedings within the scene from entry onwards so as to ensure that if required to give evidence in court the scene assessment is detailed enough so as not to give a jury any reason to doubt the team.
The next steps for SOCO's would be to liaise with fire investigators to identify any type of biological, chemical and physical evidence that correlates with the case at hand. It is at this point that the evidence would be photographed to ensure that should anything go wrong with the collection of the evidence then there is still a record of its existence as well as the fact it shows a jury the true size, shape and/or amount of the evidence in court. This evidence would carefully be collected following strict evidence collection techniques that ensure that evidence is perfectly preserved for use in court at a later date. Tthe evidence would then be labelled thoroughly allowing for the collector of the evidence to clearly be identified in case anything is called into question in court. The evidence would then be signed off on the Chain of Custody to ensure that it is written down who the evidence is being handed over to.
Scene's of crimes officers wouldn't necessarily be required now until court as the evidence from the fire scene would be handed over to the forensic Scientists if necessary to identify any potential chemicals used as a fire accelerant or other such biological evidence at the scene is analysed. The SOCO teams would prepare a witness statement to use in court and on the day they would attend with the collected exhibits collected during the inquiry so as to provide professional and factual evaluations of what the evidence means to the jury.
