The difficulty for any police employee giving such evidence has always been in showing their impartiality. With the support, direction & guidance of DEWVA, coupled with the associations non compromise on impartiality, this is changing and membership of DEWVA is now almost a pre-requisite for many trial judges. 

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Whilst law enforcement experts are invariably called to give evidence by the prosecution their role, unequivocally, is to assist the court in understanding the evidence & not to secure a conviction.

In the ruling in R v Hodges the courts further recognized this saying “As a serving police officer it was necessary for the trial judge to give a direction to the jury about the weight to be given to the officer’s opinion as clearly it would be very difficult for him to provide the necessary objectivity normally required of an expert witness”.  It is vital that expert witnesses show their impartiality both in their statements, and in their evidence.

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In the days when every force had its own drug squad, the role of drug expert witnesses usually sat within those departments, something DEWVA does not support.

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Many forces have changed the role of these squads, meaning that officers began to lose their expertise as they no longer solely investigated drug offences.  As a result the role became marginalized, in spite of its importance.

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In most forces this resulted in only a very small number of officers being able to give the evidence.

This issue was first raised by now retired Detective Inspector Bill Stupples of Merseyside Police at then ACPO Drugs Standing Working Group (SWG). 

 

As a result, a contact database was created and circulated to a wide variety of individuals throughout the United Kingdom who were involved in the investigation, in one way or another, of drug use and supply.  

 

The Drugs Advisory Group (DAG) database allowed members direct contact with each other, an NPCC region, the whole DAG group, or via a single point of contact for each law enforcement agency or forensic service provider represented.