The much-publicised malware attack on Eurofins Forensics has short and long-term consequences for the CJS.
There is now no doubt that criminal trials are already being halted and that case progression is detrimentally affected by the incident. Hundreds of victims, witnesses, and defendants will see cases deferred, adding to the backlog of trials that already exists.
Even before this incident, the increase in the service of late forensic evidence (sometimes within days of a murder trial) and the prevalence of Streamlined Forensic Reports means that a creaking CJS is now teetering on the edge.
We are yet to find out whether the Eurofins problem could have been easily avoided and whether it is a problem likely to be an isolated one but it does cause the question of data storage or, more correctly, the lack (sometimes) of hard copy storage of information to be addressed.
