Stage 5 - Investigating leads

Investigating leads is where we have information and see if there is any leads from the evidence and information we have so we can make an arrest and eliminate anyone, which is called the trace/interview/eliminate strategy (TIE). Here we make house-to-house enquires, look at CCTV if there is any and look at results from evidence such as pathology results. We make an intelligence strategy where we look at the victim and anyone linked to them and a forensic strategy where we look at evidence acquired from the scene, we also look at a financial investigation to see if the victim had any debts or anything which may be linked to the crime. this stage is very important because it gives the investigator a chance to look where the case is going and what links they can make. this can benefit the investigation process because it can link people to the crime which benefits the case. this stage would be the same for nearly every crime as for every case there will be a lead to help solve the case. you have to consider ethics as you need to treat everybody the same and make sure that all information is looked into and not just acquitted. the police also need to ensure that all information is confidential. This is a significant stage because it is looking through all the evidence found and coming to a judgement of who the suspect could be, and if the suspect is still not clear from this evidence leads can be made to certain people who can give information to the officers to help the process of finding the suspects or the killer. This stage will have a range of ethical issues involved with it because by doing house to house enquires it could affect people as they might have a young baby who is sleeping and the issue would be if the baby was woken up. So to prevent ethical issues house to house enquiries should happen at a certain time. If the person is affected in any way shape or form it can be classed as an ethical issue and this can cause an overlooking of evidence because if that person complains it could mean that house to house enquiries have to be stopped and this means less information will be found out. This stage can help make the investigation successful because in this stage it enables a link to be made and any leads identified which means more information can be found out towards helping the crime. Getting as much information and evidence as possible means that it could be solved quicker. This is a significant stage because it is looking through all the evidence found and coming to a judgement of who the suspect could be, and if the suspect is still not clear from this evidence leads can be made to certain people who can give information to the officers to help the process of finding the suspects or the killer. This stage will have a range of ethical issues involved with it because by doing house to house enquires it could affect people as they might have a young baby who is sleeping and the issue would be if the baby was woken up. So to prevent ethical issues house to house enquiries should happen at a certain time. If the person is affected in any way shape or form it can be classed as an ethical issue and this can cause an overlooking of evidence because if that person complains it could mean that house to house enquiries have to be stopped and this means less information will be found out. This stage can help make the investigation successful because in this stage it enables a link to be made and any leads identified which means more information can be found out towards helping the crime. Getting as much information and evidence as possible means that it could be solved quicker.

When the investigation began at first there was no immediate leads however Huntley was very involved with helping search for the girls, he was a part of press conferences, helped go on searches etc he was overly interested and a police officer became suspicious of this so Huntley's house was searched and later on when the girls shirts where found it lead straight to Huntley which gave them a lead. at first the case didn't really have any investigating leads which wasn't very successful to the case however when the media got involved and showed Huntley helping with the hunt for the missing girls body language experts and police began to suspect something strange with Huntley's obsession for the case which then made the police look into his history and his previous convictions which began a lead for the investigation which eventually proved Huntley to be the killer. so the media intrusion helped the case because it made people look at Huntley however the police had to consider ethics when doing this as they couldn't just judge Huntley or accuse him just people people have judged him they had to investigate it before hand. however this lead was only found further into the investigation which was an error as if this lead had been found earlier then maybe the girls would of been found sooner. the lead that Huntley had abducted the girls and killed then was a very important lead because once an investigation was done about him it brought out a number of things about his past which made the police question how he was able to get a job as a caretaker in a school, this then madew police believe he was involved and after evidence was found involving the girls shirts and fibres, the evidence all pointed towards him.