Many criticisms of the police are made regarding over the length of time it takes to identify a body and return them back to there loved ones. I can understand the frustration and as a body recovery officer I know the importance of getting the right person to the right family.
Now I know that when I mention body recovery people have an image that the police officers form a line and then go along slowly putting the body parts into a bin liner and then sorting it out later…..this is not the case I cant go into operational matters but I can assure you that the recovery of body parts is meticulously done and every fragment is recorded separately.

On 7/7 bombings the coroner declared that any body fragment bigger than 1 cm would be declared a body part and would be recovered as such.. and we did,… we recovered every last body item and the relatives can be assured that we went to great pains to ensure every bit of their loved ones was returned to them….sorry if it sounds gory but it is important to the relatives that this is done.

Also what seems a simple identification can be anything but. I have witnessed a mother identify her son and when we showed her the body she broke down saying “thank god it isn’t him”…it was but she would not confirm it and she never did accept it …she even refused to go to his funeral stating that it was not him….also in cases where there is nothing to identify police will get DNA from the parent. as is often the case the husband will volunteer to save his wife the pain and to shield her from the id procedure…we have to be very subtle and tell the husband that we would have a better chance with his wife’s DNA and other persuasions…the thing is, sadly dad is often not the Dad ..Disasters have shown this to be a common factor and have caused a delay in identification.

At Lockerbie the Pan Am Bombing one girl was Identified and sent to Canada another to Germany…they were the wrong bodies. they were identified by dental x rays. Who would have thought that both girls could have had identical dental work the same fillings and the same size shape teeth?
In disasters the trauma does very strange things people can look like a black person when in fact they are white…

Identification is important and needs to be right..If it is wrong then it will cause so much more suffering to the relatives..

Other times the police try to do what’s right.

After a woman’s son had been identified she asked for the clothing to be returned. the clothes had been in an awful state as the body of her son had decomposed and the blood stains and mess were awful…the officers washed the clothed and dried they returned them to the mother …when she opened the bag, she sank to her knees crying she turned to the officer and shouted “ YOU BASTARDS”

..What’s wrong asked the police officer!!??

“All his life it was me that washed his clothes how dare you take that final job away from me”..