Evidence in support of digital forensics

May 28 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

Murderers, fraudsters and paedophiles are being brought to justice with the help of digital forensic evidence. Andrew Mernin meets a man who has brought CSI into the 21st Century to find out more.

THE newspaper headline read ‘Pervert strangled music teacher’ when Graham Coutts was finally brought to justice in 2007.

Coutts had, three years earlier, strangled a 31-year-old woman with a pair of tights before keeping her body in a storage unit.

But behind the newspaper stories emanating from the high-profile murder of the Berkshire teacher was a painstaking investigation involving forensic experts from a spectrum of fields.

And among this team of scientists was Angus Marshall, who recently launched a digital forensics business near Darlington and played a key role in finding the technology-based evidence to convict Coutts.

As our lives become increasingly governed by machines, the devices we use every day can tell a story of our whereabouts, our actions and when our habits change.

And it is the job of Marshall’s new business, N-Gate, to tap into that information for the defence, the prosecution or the police on fraud, missing persons and sometimes even murder cases.

Getting hold of Marshall has been a cloak-and-dagger affair, and, as numerous telephone interviews are hastily rearranged over several weeks, I am told he is working on something big and isn’t currently available.

When we finally do speak, the cheery character on the other end of the phone isn’t what I expected.

“People are living their lives through mobile phones and online,” he says.

“We are seeing a real growth in the demand for computer inquiries. Everything is driven from computers for criminal and for civil cases.”

Since forensic science became a competitive commercial venture there has been a dramatic rise in the number of service providers competing in the open market.

Marshall’s firm is one of a number of specialist groups working with the Forensic Science Regulator to develop and introduce new regulations for forensic practitioners.