How To Get The Most Out Of Your Expert Witness Report

Delays are all too common in criminal proceedings costing the public purse ever amounting unnecessary spend.

At Forensic Access we pride ourselves on managing your case efficiently and effectively to meet your court dates thereby minimising delays in proceedings. Very often we find that after receiving an initial enquiry from yourselves we need more information in order to provide a quote which can slow the process down. With this in mind, we thought it would be useful to produce a guide detailing the information we require before we can provide you with a quote for the work that also ensures you receive a report that answers all your questions.

 

Letter of instruction or advice

The clients name- This is so we can check that our crown scientists have not previously worked on the case.

Whether the client is legally aided or privately funded- Some of our experts only accept privately funded instructions.

Court date and the date the report is required by- Both of these are important as we need to make sure the expert we approach is available for those dates, before they will provide a quote.

Court location- We have experts all over the country and knowing the location of the trial helps us to reduce the cost of travel time on your quote.

The type of expert you require- We appreciate this is not always apparent so do call us to discuss this first and we can advise what to include over the phone.

How many and which exhibits you require us to look at- This will help the expert to give a realistic quote for the time it will take them to complete the work.

The location of the exhibits you would like us to examine- we will need to include travel time for the expert to visit the prosecution lab and examine the exhibits or alternatively the cost of a courier to bring the exhibits to our laboratory.

What questions would you like us to answer- This is key as our examinations/ review will be tailored to your specific questions.

 

Additional requirements for Medical cases

Quantity of material for review- The number of pages or lever arch files will give us a good idea of how much time the expert will need to spend.

Is the client able to travel to the expert? This helps us reduce the cost of the quote as we wont need to include travel time and expenses.

Client location if an assessment is required- We have experts all over the country and knowing the location of the client helps us to reduce the cost of travel time.

 

Additional requirements for Facial mapping/ video enhancement and audio enhancement

The number and length of the video or audio files you would like the expert to work on- 1 minute of video or audio footage can take the expert many hours to analyse so if we know this information up front, we can give a more accurate quote.

Please also include in your email along with the letter/ email of instruction, the crown expert report or streamlined forensic report (SFR) and a case summary.

 

To find out more about the expert services offered by Forensic Access fill-in our online contact form or Tel: 01235 774870 to speak with our team.