Question: How often are you right when compiling evidence on the death of a person?

Mark Hill answered on 16 Mar 2011:

Hi Sammy,

Thank you for another good question.

I have to be really sure that what I write in my reports for the courts is accurate and proven, as best that I can. I won’t write something about a collision, unless I can back it up with fact. Someone in the court will always challenge a perceived weakness or important fact and I cannot afford to have my evidence and me discredited in court.
In order to safeguard this, my reports are always critically peer reviewed, by another collision investigator in my office, who hadn’t been involved in the job concerned. They use their skills to look for errors, weaknesses and to test the more straightforward maths. The more complicated maths is also checked by a outside maths verifier, who is also a uni maths lecturer. It is essential that my reports are accurate before court, lest an innocent person be found gulity, or a guilty person walk free.

Hopefully any errors in my work are highlighted long before court.
So, in answer to your question, I hope that my evidence is correct. I won’t give any evidence as a statement if I cannot be certain that it is correct and backed up by fact or research.
The physical evidence of a crash is usually the best evidence to reconstruct a crash on. That is what I like to rely on.

Thanks.
Mark.