Waiting

This past year has been fairly quiet around Damien’s case.  But things are happening, at a snails pace.  I have been informed by my cold case officer that Damien’s case will be give back to the Major Crime team and an SIO provided.  This is an endeavor to work with Locate International who are able to assist police investigations with no cost to police.  This will allow police and Locate to do work around unidentified and unclaimed body parts to ensure they are all cross matched and recorded.  It has be a snail mail process whereby the case officer recommended this happen but going up the food chain for approval has been painfully slow!  We are still awaiting final green light and getting feedback is tortuous. 

At this time it’s a bit hit and miss if a body part gets the important scrutiny needed.  Although there are protocols in place to do this, I have heard from people who found bones and took them to police who threw them into the bin.  That is unacceptable.

There are a few burial at sea sites around the UK and the Isle of Wight has one.  Often body parts are washed up from a burial at sea gone wrong.  The police may be quick to assume this is the case when body parts wash ashore.  It is also known that unless it’s a body part a human cannot ‘live without’ it may never be looked into.  This is also unacceptable.