Last year, we spoke to Sam Charles, a forensic examiner at the Glades Sexual Assault Referral Centre, or SARC Centre in Worcester. We asked her about how a typical examination is conducted.

“So when they come into the examination suite, they would change in the bathroom into a gown so that I can examine them top to toe for any injuries, record those on a body map and then usually at that point they will have given me a urine specimen as well when they’re changing. So that would generally be my first sample and then I would usually take swabs in the order that the FFLM guidelines for forensic examinations suggest. So once we’ve completed all the samples and finished that physical part of the examination, the client would then get dressed, go into another room and I would seal and bag and seal the sample. So, finish, labelling, bagging and sealing the samples and the crisis work will look after the client while I’m doing that. It is very common to have bruises that the clients say are bite marks, especially on the neck and breast. On female victims. Other very common bruises are if the assault has been violent in nature, there are quite often bruises over bony prominences, so knees, shins, hips, and elbows. Quite often, we might find fingerprint-type bruising on upper arms and round wrists if it’s been an outdoor assault. Quite often, people have abrasions from falling on the ground outside, or they’ve had to put their hands out if they’ve been pushed or something like that. Non intimate injuries, I would measure and draw badly, probably on a body map, really, just that a copy does get submitted to the police and that may be presented in the body maps. So I would measure the injury, record it on the relevant body diagram and describe it on the body diagram. But we don’t actually take photographs of non-intimate injuries. GIf it’s something that’s non intimate and obvious and the client is aware of, they say, Look, I’ve got this terrible mark on my neck, he bit me. They would hopefully have taken a photo. But if I find anything else, any bruises anywhere else, or abrasions or lacerations or anything that are non-intimate that the police haven’t photographed as part of my handover back to the police, I would say, right, there are some injuries that need photographing.