This is the example paragraph I used for my Criminology Unit 3, Ac3.1 section, in which I achieved 98/100 (A*). It perfectly matches the criteria and contains all the details/examples you need.
Ac3.1
Jeremy Bambers case highlight the significant need for valid evidence when convicting someone. He
was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of the murder of his parents, his sister and her
two twin sons in 1986. The police originally suspected murder-suicide from Sheila (the sister) seeing
as she was schizophrenic, however, guilt was then appointed to Jeremy since a discovery of a silencer
was made. His mother and Sheila’s sons have been murdered in their sleep indicating the silencer
was crucial in order to kill someone without disturbing the rest of the house. The fact that Sheila
would’ve been unable to kill herself with the silencer on (demonstrated at the trial) indicates the
presence of another murderer, making this evidence valid and relevant due to containing the opinion
of experts. The demonstration of Sheila’s arms being too short to kill herself also increases that
validity of the prosecution's case as it provides the court with in the moment evidence that could not
be falsified. However, the silencer does lack currency due to the fact it was found a few days after the
police’s initial search: this creates speculations as either the police have not carried out their search
properly, or someone has planted the evidence. Either way, the silencer lacks validity. Julie’s
Monkfords statement against Jeremy provides the police with Jeremy’s motive (wanting the
inheritance) which increases the suspicion of him being the murder. However, this evidence not only
lacks currency as she took a month to come forward, but also can be seen as bias: she could’ve easily
lied due to being mad at Jeremy for cheating. The fact that her testimony could create a deceptive
image of Jeremy Bamber also shows how the circumstances (in her case, getting dumped) floating
around criminal cases can impact the reliability of what they claim is true. The third piece of
evidence used in this case was the prosecution teams accounts. One report claimed that there were
three bodies upstairs whilst another one claims there were four. The inconsistency of these reports
indicates that procedures couldn’t been rushed, and the crime see was not examined properly. This
would decrease the accuracy of the reports, likely leading to an unjust verdict. His verdict was invalid
due to the amount of police mismatches in the case.
Information such as evidence will be examined for validity, seeing as some evidence submitted is
inaccurate and bias. The Cardiff 5 case shows aspects of bias within the stereotypical media
coverage, where the suspects faced constants discrimination and hatred. The reason for this
information being highly inaccurate and bias is the false perception it created, it led to people
automatically assuming their guilt despite many of the evidence not corroborating. This ultimately
led to the trial being a miscarriage of justice as the high volume of publications made it almost
impossible to prevent the jurors from seeing any content, this meant they came out with an invalid
verdict. The Cardiff 5 case also shows the lack of credibility within some eyewitness testimonies.
Leanne Vilday was a friend of Lynette White and gave statements against the five suspects, her
testimony was given a lot of weight primarily due to the circumstances: the police were faced with a
huge amount of media pressure which could explain why they clinged onto the tiniest evidence and
heavily pushed for a conviction. These circumstances could also be the reason why the police were
impatient when trying to withdraw a confession from Stephen Miller, they turned to unethical tactics
to speed the process up once realising Stephen was pleading not guilty. An expert psychologists
explained how Stephen's confession should be dismissed due to the high levels of stress endured
when being interrogated. However, despite his professionalism, his opinion was practically ignored,
and the confession was deemed as admissible. Considering this confession held the most currency in
the trial (it was the key piece of evidence that led to a conviction), the trial was based on
inadmissible evidence which is why the verdict lacked validity and led to a miscarriage of justice.
Expert evidence holds a lot of of status specifically due to jurors not being well educated on the
complex terms and statistics used. In theory, expert opinions are strongly valid seeing as, in most
cases, their points are backed up by some sort of evidence. However, this may not always be
guaranteed due to human error complications or intentional sabotage coming from the experts. Sally
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