Developing Britain's police surgeon service

BMJ 1995;311:1587 (16 December)

Editorials

Developing Britain's police surgeon service

Needs better legal and forensic training

Police surgeons, also known as forensic medical examiners, aredoctors who have agreed to make themselves readily availableto respond to calls by the police.¹ Their work entails examiningdetainees and police officers who have sustained injuries orwho have other medical problems. They also decide whether individualsare fit to be detained or interviewed.

The role of police surgeons in the criminal justice processhas been highlighted, not always positively, in a series ofreports and court cases over recent years. Although the vastmajority of them discharge their duties well, police surgeonshave been implicated in several high profile cases of injusticein the British courts. Carole Richardson, one of the "Guildfordfour," was convicted of an IRA bombing substantially on thebasis of a statement made after having been given a sedativefor drug withdrawal.² Enghin Raghip's admissions of involvementin . . . [Full text of this article]