KNOW YOUR RIGHTS
There was then an internal whistleblower who raised the manip- ulation and that is how the investigation started.
In a court of law the bottom line is that the prosecution has to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that a specimen of blood has accurately been tested. And the only way they can show that a specimen of blood has been accurately tested is to show that the machine tested it was working properly.
If the prosecution cannot show that the machine was working properly, then it cannot prove that the blood specimens were accurate.
And so that is where the investigation started.
dox one. The police generally use four accredited labs and Randox is only one of them. If it was tested by a different lab the specimen will not be affected.
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW?
Randox voluntarily suspended their accreditation and has stopped accepting blood specimens for testing.
The investigation expanded rapidly. Initially a few hundred samples were being investigated, then it rose to 6000, now it’s over 10,500.
Ninety people have so far had their convictions overturned - either by the court or by the CPS discontinuing proceedings.
Randox are paying for all of the specimens to be re-tested at other laboratories. The police have not been clear about ex- actly how many have been re-tested so far, but we understand that approximately 3,000 did not need to be re-tested be- cause the blood sample was not crucial to the outcome at Court, and of the remaining 7,500 or so less than half have been tested.
We have also spoken with a District Crown Prosecutor who has explained that the Crown Prosecution Service are to contact everybody whose blood specimen either cannot be retested or whose blood has been retested and the results are not ac- curate, and they are to reopen the proceedings against them.
But our understanding is also that those people whose sam- ples who have been re-tested and have been found to be ac- curate are not going to be contacted and are not going to have their cases reopened.
The investigation, and possible prosecution, against the two employees is continuing.
What does this mean for drivers who have been convicted of drink or drug driving?
Generally this will only affect people who have been convicted of a drink/drug driving offence – where a blood sample was taken – since 2014.
The first thing to check is whether your specimen was a Ran- JANUARY 2019 65
If you think you could have been affected, call us now on 01626 359800 or email
contact@pattersonlaw.co.uk for free advice, or for regular updates on the Randox story or road traffic law generally follow them on
facebook.com/PattersonLawMotoringSolicitors or
twitter.com/Patterson_law_
For those who have a copy of their evidence the information should be contained in a document called the “SFR 1 – Stream- lined Forensic Report”. For those who do not have their evi- dence more detailed enquiries will need to be made with the Crown Prosecution Service.
The second point is that the specimen must have been tested by Randox during the period under investigation. So far the police and Randox have not released the exact dates, but we are aware that the manipulation began late 2014/early 2015 and the employees were not arrested until November 2016, so any time from late 2014 up to the end of 2016 is worth inves- tigating.
If your case is both a Randox one AND the blood sample was tested during the affected period, then you may have a case to argue for your matter to be reopened.
Just because the CPS has not contacted you directly does not mean you haven’t got a case. It’s all well and good for Randox to pay for other laboratories to retest the samples; however our view is if the people working for Randox have been ac- cused of perverting the course of justice, then who’s to say that the samples retain the necessary integrity?
Surely the whole process, if it has been in the hands of Randox who were employing people who are now charged with crim- inal offences, must have the integrity of the other results, as well as the storage, manipulation and many other areas. We would challenge every single case that went through the hands of Randox at the relevant time.
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