34,000 family court cases hit by scandal at forensic labs

MORE than 34,000 child custody cases could have been jeopardised by the forensics tampering scandal.

As the impact of the forensic data fiddling continues to grow, it can now be revealed the true number of criminal and civil cases affected may be higher than 44,000.

This week the National Police Chiefs Council announced 10,000 criminal cases in england and Wales dating back to 2010, including rapes and murders, are being reviewed after two forensic scientists were arrested on suspicion of manipulation of drug and alcohol tests.

But the impact on the family courts could be far wider as the laboratory was once carrying out at least 6,800 hair tests for drugs and alcohol in child welfare cases a year.

Last night there were calls for a public inquiry into the crisis, as critics questioned why it took so long for the authorities to investigate when High Court judges were warning back in 2011 of serious mistakes being made at the Manchester laboratory, One mother nearly had her children wrongly put into care before her drug sample was retested by a rival lab.

The Mail has learnt one of the suspects under investigation was once a poster boy for the forensic world who boasted he had helped to shape the Government’s drug- driving laws brought in in March 2015.

Considered an expert in his field, he gave testimony in court cases as to the reliability of his tests, and the scientist is said to have analysed over 50,000 samples for drugs during his career, many of which are now under review.

Between 2010 and 2014, when the lab was run by Trimega Laboratories, it is estimated to have carried out 34,000 tests for child custody cases. After it went into administration, the lab was taken on by Randox which also carried out hundreds of tests which are now under scrutiny.

The same lab also churned

‘The scale of it beggars belief’

out drug tests for inquests, nurses and employment checks, which could have put the public at risk if the results were wrong. Yesterday Norman Lamb, chairman of the science and technology select committee, called for a public inquiry into the scandal.

He said: ‘The scale of the potential impact here is enormous, it beggars belief.

‘ The reality is this could impact on families across the country and the really awful consequence is that many children potentially could have been taken from their parents based on flawed evidence from flawed analysis and there is nothing more troubling than children being taken away from their parents. It’s unimaginable.’