 Hello, I am Claudia Mollouy, your moderator for a special panel discussion of One Hour Duration, where we will inform the public of the upcoming 4th Annual Caribbean Forensic and Medical Legal Symposium, slated to take place here from November 15th to the 16th, 2019. Now the term may sound a bit heavy when we speak of forensic and medical legal symposium, but here with us to demystify, explain and simplify the terms and all of what it could mean to us and should mean to us as a public is, from my right, Mrs. Joy Quinlan. She is a forensic scientist with the St. Lucia Forensic Science Laboratory. We have Ms. Compton with us. Ms. Elica Compton is a forensic scientist, one also with the St. Lucia Forensic Science Laboratory. We have with us Mrs. Jillian Leek and she is a consultant forensic scientist from Principal Forensics Limited. And we have with us the male rose among the roses, another one, our very well-known, well-liked, I'd say, pathologist Dr. Stephen King of Laboratory Services and Consultation Limited. Welcome to you all and may I also acknowledge our audience of students. I see with us we have SJC students as well as Leon Hess. Welcome and we do invite you to pose some questions later on in the discussion. And I would also like to acknowledge the director of the St. Lucia Forensic Science Laboratory. And I think if the camera is on her, she will wave and smile and that would be Ms. Fernanda Henry. We are blessed with this discussion, this symposia taking place in St. Lucia for the very first time. And we have with us, via video link, two individuals. We have Dr. Alfredo E. Walker and he's the forensic pathologist coroner from Eastern Ontario Regional Forensic Pathology Unit, University of Ottawa, who is the trailblazer, if you will, of this initiative. And he will speak to the background of this symposia. This is the fourth annual symposia and it's the first time being held in St. Lucia, but it has taken place in a neighboring Caribbean island before. And so Dr. Walker will speak to this and provide us with some background. Thank you very much for this opportunity to be with you all this morning to provide some background as to how this thought and how Caribbean medical legal and forensic symposium came about. In 2016, myself together with a former judge from the criminal bench in St. Vincent and the Grand Deans stayed the first St. Vincent and the Grenadines Medical and Bar Association's forensic symposia. And as a result of that, there have been annual symposia subsequently in 2017 and 2018, which brings us to this current position where we are now in St. Lucia with the fourth initiative as an extension of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines annual forensic symposia. My role in this came about as a result of three key individuals. Justice Catian Waterman Lachu, who is High Court Justice in Trinidad and Tobago at the moment. At that time was on the criminal division bench in St. Vincent. And I knew Justice Waterman from her days as the deputy DPP in Trinidad and Tobago. Justice Waterman Lachu had reached out to me once she assumed her position on the bench to provide some sort of assistance with respect to the forensic pathology interpretations of post-mortem examination reports in the jurisdiction of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And as a result of that interaction, she then reached out to Ms. Renee Bates, the president of the St. Vincent and Grenadines Bar Association, and Dr. Roslyn Ambrose, who is the president of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Medical Association. Coincidentally, Ms. Bates and Dr. Ambrose are sisters. So she had reached out to them with a vision that annual forensic symposium be started in St. Vincent as a means of providing professional continuing development, educational credits for members of the bar as well as members of the medical profession. And that's how it started. Over the years, since 2016, it has grown in terms of the number of days. Initially, it was just one day in 2016. And now it is a two-day event. Last year, November 2018, we had 106 participants from six different Caribbean jurisdictions. And as a result of that, we decided to why not take it outside of the borders of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I reached out to Ms. Fernanda Henry, who's the director of the lab in St. Lucia. She graciously accepted the challenge, and this is where we are today. Today, we have a large number of registrants from an even wider spectrum of jurisdictions in the Caribbean. For the first time, we'll be having attendees from Turks and Caicos in addition to the usual suspects, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados. So this is in a nutshell how this event came about. I would like to now move on to our panelists and engage Dr. King in painting for us the picture of where are we as an OECS region in terms of forensic science, and particularly for the benefit of our students. And you may also search on what is forensic science and where are we making strides, where we would like to be and paint that picture for us. Okay, good morning. It's a pleasure to be involved with this symposium. I think this is really a landmark event in St. Lucia and for the OECS. There is no doubt that in forensic medicine and forensic science, the OECS has been moving and evolving over the years. I've been involved in the OECS in this field since 1989, and I have definitely seen real evolution of the service. And for our students, we need to understand that looking at solving crime involves multiple players. It involves not only the public, it involves the police, it involves the forensic scientists, it involves doctors and forensic pathologists and so on. So there's a whole team of people. You can even take it further. There are people that look at documents, there are people that look at forensic auditing and finance. All of these elements need to be brought together to really solve crime because crime can be a complex issue to be resolved. In the OECS subregion, St. Lucia in particular has positioned itself, in my view, to be a leader. And thanks to the work of Fernanda and the forensic scientists who are present on this panel, we have a forensic lab which is, I think, just about to really expand what it can truly do. We have, thanks to Alfredo Walker and the Ontario Forensic Science Services, we have a great link for, shall we say, improving our forensic pathology services as well as our forensic science services. St. Lucia has five pathologists right now and we have one board-certified, U.S. board-certified forensic pathologist and we have another anatomical pathologist currently doing a fellowship through the Ontario Forensic Science Service in the centre. I've said all this to say that from that you can see that St. Lucia is well poised to work for the OECS with the other forensic scientists, other police forces and other pathologists in the other islands to create in this OECS a truly professional, effective, comprehensive forensic science service. I think having said that, I think what's really important is the organization, coordination and leadership of this service because to bring these multiple players, this multi-disciplined approach to solving crime in this OECS subregion, we need to have good, clear leadership and clear organization and clear commitment from the various governments. Our public is very clear. There's no doubt that crime and violence is on the rise. I can tell you, just looking at homicides, when I came to St. Lucia in 1989, we were at a homicide rate of about 10 homicides per 100,000 people per annum. Right now, we are close to 30 per 100,000 per annum. So that shows you what we are dealing with in the OECS subregion. Yes, definitely there are the challenges and of course the public perception links the success rates in crime detection to how efficient and how effective our forensic services are. In terms of the reality of that scenario, I'm sure that you can elaborate a little bit on that. The scientists who actually work in the lab can share some insight on that. And I would like to also comment the fact that we have two female scientists with us here. And hopefully you will portray some sort of inspiration to young ladies in the society because we need more forensic scientists. As Dr. Kibbe indicated, there's a lot of work to be done and so we would need more solutions to become part of that career path. So your thoughts on the direct correlation that the public makes between the solving of crimes, particularly homicides and forensic... Yes, science at the lab. Okay, so I think, good morning everybody. So I think that they definitely play a role, especially with police investigations. We know that the police tend to reach out to the public when a crime has been committed to ask for some kind of help. As we have indicated, technology has advanced and we no longer want to rely on witnesses or eyewitnesses and so forensic plays that role where the lab is only as good as the evidence that we get. So what we get, we would work on and try to give the police information that could help with investigations and with the courts also to help them to close out a case. I think also the public perception, especially for the forensic lab, is here in St. Lucia is that we need to be accredited and a lot of people take that into context as meaning that the lab cannot operate if it is not yet accredited and I'd like to clear the air and say that accreditation is one of the things that... it's not an end-all, solve-all thing. We need to understand that to be accredited you have to put work in. So even if everybody is calling for accreditation, we need to understand what it really is before we can say that we cannot do that work. So I think that's something that we hear a lot in the public, that the lab is not accredited, why are we open and all of that. We can still function. Yes, we can still function. The lab is busy. We are busy. Yes, so we can still function. We are following a certain standard, what we call 17.025 ISO 17.025 2017 standard for testing laboratories. So these and that when we have enough, when we can call in an accrediting body, could look at what we do and then decide whether we can become accredited or not. Very interesting. Jillian, perhaps you can share an international perspective with us and perhaps even narrate down to what you have experienced having attended the past symposia in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Yes, good morning. I worked for the forensic science service in the UK for 34 years and in that time I worked for Dr Walker and since then I've got my own two companies but I've linked up with Dr Walker and the Caribbean side of trying to help share and boost the knowledge of what we've achieved in the UK. We've got accreditation at a lot of the labs now in the UK and part of the role I had was as a trainer and I still deliver training and I'm very much about cross-pollinating that knowledge, sharing it over here in the Caribbean to try and help develop and bring things on. Thank you so much. I think that we add you for a break and when we come back we will look at the theme protecting the children of the Caribbean from mild treatment and abuse. One of the eight university-recognized rights of the consumer is the right to be heard. This means that every consumer who is dissatisfied with a good or service has the right to lodge a complaint to the provider of that good or that service. This should be the first point of lodging a complaint and ensure that the receipt, as proof of the transaction, is available. Welcome back to our discussion on the fourth annual Caribbean Medical Legal and Forensic Science symposium and the theme dwells on protecting the children of the Caribbean from mild treatment and abuse. I'm sure this theme is very pertinent and commendable because it targets a section of the population who don't normally have a voice for themselves or they're not taken seriously or they do not have the influence to bring to bear the issues which affect their lives. So, beginning from my right, I would like to engage joy in this and how relevant do you think this is to the reality confronting St. Lucia and the region at this time. So, the topic is, I think, is very relevant. Like you said, children are, first of all, they're the future and we need to have something in place for them. So, we want to make sure that we have children who can function in society and who can help with our development. So, I think it's very pertinent that we look at it and like Dr. King said, this is a field where you have so many different facets, so many different people have to come into helping with this. So, you have social workers, you have nurses, you have doctors, you have scientists, you have lawyers, you have police officers. So, if everybody, this symposium really tries to target everybody who would come into play with a case of child abuse or child maltreatment and have them say or give their point of view of how they could help, you know, a child or children in a situation like that and how their different fields would interact and how we can probably improve on our interactions instead of working in silos so that we can really make this something that other Caribbean islands could look at and model and other people could model. I think it's relevant too in the sense that after the last symposium in November of 2018, you had the passing of the Child Justice, Child Care and Protection and Adoption Act. So, I think it comes right off of the heels of this act being passed so that we could look into implementing measures as to how to protect our children. And I think I remember our director, Miss Henry, saying that they're not only our future, but they are our present. And what's happening with them now, it's happening presently and so we need to focus on that so that they are able to contribute to developing, you know, as we pass on the mantle to our children that they're able to help develop our country as well. Gillian? Yeah. The area that I'm particularly interested in is that the sciences sound that we have things in place, look at the DNA database to catch the person that's committed a crime, but equally exonerate them from it. If they've not committed that act, what sort of precautions need to be taken in the whole scientific approach to your case? You want it results quickly, cheaply and accurate? Definitely. So children deserve special treatment in the context of investigation of matters, criminal matters, et cetera. There's a particular protocol for that. Dr. King, I know that you've been involved in the social fabric and very much underground in St. Lucia and if I had to guess, I would say that such a theme would be very dear to your heart. Very much so. The children are an extremely vulnerable population and the nurturing of a child is the most important thing that any society can do and apart from just talking about and this symposium is dealing with that, not just looking at the medical legal aspects but also looking at issues like trauma-informed child care and addressing adverse childhood experiences because our medical literature is now very clear that adverse childhood experiences which many of our children are experiencing have experienced and are experiencing right now is very clearly correlated with disease, with antisocial behavior and with even incarceration because the environment that we raise our children is what determines what happens to them and how they behave in their lives and that I think is a very exciting part and it broadens what we need to understand about child mild treatment and child abuse and it involves psychologists, educators and parents, of course, to create the right environment so that our children can be the kind of people that we need to drive our society forward. So that's why to me this is a topic that is very near and dear to me and this is not going to be the last time you're going to hear us talking about this. Among the topics outlined we have the investigation of incest, we have the autism spectrum disorders and perceived misbehavior and child abuse which will be presented by Dr. Natalie Dick of Trinidad and Tobago. We have the role of the medical legal death investigator and all of these are mentioned and it is just for the information of you members of the public who would and should be interested in attending the fourth annual Caribbean Medical Legal and Forensic Symposium. Registration is still ongoing and I will have joy to elaborate a little bit on this and also to remind our students that you should take your notes and pose your questions. The panelists will be more than happy to give you a response. We are about to close registrations but we still have a few days that the public can call us at the laboratory or they can also register online at the website at the University of Ottawa. We are hosting this symposium at the Golden Grove Ballroom at the Harbour Club on the 15th and 16th that's a Friday and Saturday of this week and if you are interested you could call our laboratory at 452-7200 and we would be happy to help you and accommodate you to register or you could go on to the website the University of Ottawa website and search for the fourth annual Caribbean Medical Legal and Forensic Symposium where you could get all of the information. So on there will be our agenda. We also are issuing continuing education credits to doctors and professional credits via the University of Ottawa as well as the Caribbean Council of Family Physicians. So all of this, it's very exciting there's a lot to take in and there's a lot of information that I think the public would be very happy and very good for them to understand what it takes to have all of this happen for us in the forensic community as well as in the medical and social fields. We have over 20 speakers and when persons go online they will be privy to the speaker profile so you just click on this and you could read up on the presenters and have a look at the snapshot on the website as well. We have a wide of many people from all over the Caribbean like Dr Walker said as well as local speakers and international speakers from a variety of fields. So social workers, doctors we have police officers, crime scene specialists we have forensic scientists and we're speaking on a variety of topics all linked to child abuse but as well as forensics in general. I think we should add to that parents if you can you should certainly try to make it to an activity such as this so that we can learn as much as we can I know that parenting classes is something that has been initiated in certain communities now and so it shows that there is a need for parents to understand in depth a lot of the issues which could weigh on children and even the approach taken in the home to raising children in a healthy manner in a wholesome manner that could provide them with an opportunity to become productive members of the society. So everyone here except for Alika will be presenters and I would like everybody to provide some inside some snapshots into what your topic is and the passion that you will bring to bear on that topic actually means something to you. Okay so I am speaking on I have two topics one is sexual assault we're looking at how sexual assault the laboratory can help with sexual assault cases so the evaluation, the impact and the investigation of sexual assault from a forensic lab perspective so what it is that we would need to get from a case to be able to successfully process it secondly we hear a lot of talk about DNA and trace DNA I'm a DNA analyst by profession and so I would my second topic details DNA analysis but from the point of view of a grouping case so not a case where you have a lot of DNA but very minute amounts and how the lab or as an analyst I would have to process that case what are the limitations of having so little DNA what I would like to dispel some of the myths surrounding DNA we think that DNA is this magic box that you know you put everything in and wow we get everything out of it and so I'd like to dispel those myths also but also I would like to show how we can use this tool to help solve crime and even like Gillian said exonerate people who are innocent of crimes well we'll stick up here right now we'll take a break and we will be right back stay with us thank you for watching and see you in the next video see you in the next video welcome back to our discussion and we are highlighting various areas of DNA analysis and we would like to thank you for watching this video and we hope you have a great day and see you in the next video and see you in the next video and we are highlighting various areas of the topics that our presenters here will speak on at the symposium and I would like to bring on Dr Walker who is still with us via video link to share with us his perspective on the theme and as well to speak to the topic that he is going to be presenting on Dr Walker thank you again Claudia so the theme was actually my doing because I thought it was relevant to the situation in the Caribbean so protecting the children of the Caribbean from maltreatment and abuse is right at the heart of many issues which span psychosocial medical and legal arenas so the idea behind this theme was to provide participants with a holistic view of child maltreatment and abuse and the effect that it has across the entire spectrum of life with respect to teachers, counselors others etc. how to identify worrisome features which should cause concern and force them to get some sort of assistance for the affected child as well as to provide professional guidelines on standards of practice with respect to clinical forensic medicine physicians emergency medicine physicians forensic pathologists, pediatric pathologists prosecutors defense attorneys and members of the judiciary as far as adjudicating these cases are concerned my particular presentation is the post-mortem examination of the suspected fatal sexual assault and we will be looking at the approach to the post-mortem examination in such cases it would be necessary to take sexual assault swabs as part of the post-mortem examination as well as the actual conduct of the post-mortem examination with respect to gendered and special dissections thank you so much Dr Walker so Jillian you are one of our presenters yes I'll be giving an overview of the lessons learned I suppose of the national DNA database and how it came about how it was set up in the UK and some of the things we've had to adjust and change to make sure that we do get accuracy in the results that we put onto the database there's a couple of case studies that show issues that were flagged up and why we had to change things thank you my presentation is really a reflective one it's looking at 30 years of practice in the solution in the Caribbean it's called from the womb to the autopsy the real objective of that presentation is I would like to it's a hopeful optimistic presentation I'd like to empower anybody who has that presentation to understand that we can do it we have the, there's a strategy we need to use to be able to improve services to get to a point where our people can benefit from the kinds of services they truly deserve so that we can be the kind of country that we have that potential to be so, and I'm trying to my experience is over the 30 years of advocating I'm going to share the failures and the triumphs through the years okay Dr. King a follow-up question drawing on your many many years of experience and dealing with this ticklish topic where I know that some persons may prefer to say well it's not that bad in St. Lucia we don't really have an issue on our hands with maltreatment and the abuse of children so if there is a scientist and other experts are getting together why are they looking at this but then from your years of experience our children, our youth are they in some dire straits that we need to wake up and take note of and change to help improve their situation most definitely St. Lucia youth are suffering have been suffering for many years and they continue to suffer they are being killed and they are being traumatized and it is time it is unacceptable that we as shall we say the adults who have the reins of authority in our hands or the ability to influence the people that have the reins don't put in place the machinery the mechanism, the procedures and the processes to ensure that they are in an environment where they are safe, they are loved and they are protected because we have not done that we are not doing that and that's why I said this particular conference to me is a milestone and I am hoping that leading on from here it will be different, the prime minister will be speaking he will be speaking at this conference on Friday and I think he in particular as a leader needs to take note of what is necessary to put in place that's a very strong statement from you Julian, the UK experience in so far as the protection of children from maltreatment and abuse I know there is a lot going on that perhaps we can learn from as you said in terms of sharing with us so as small Caribbean countries who probably do not have all the social safety nets that more developed countries have we would still appreciate what you can perhaps recommend to us as we strive to create a better, friendlier society for children and youth I think it's about this networking that we are doing here this link that we are building up and if you have individuals that can answer all the questions that you want answering they may know somebody that can and we need to open up that ability to cross-pollinate the capabilities between the different countries to improve Thank you so much, I will now go to the students is there anybody who would like to pose a question at this time? Please indicate your name and the name of the school Hello, good morning, my name is Azende Popo from the St. Joseph's convent my question is, are there any initiatives being taken to develop a DNA bank for the general public? Okay, so I'll speak to that thank you for your question Ms. Popo so currently we do not have any initiatives in place to develop a DNA bank I think Jillian Stock will definitely explain what it takes to put up a DNA database it is a very expensive venture it is not something that we can just decide today and stop doing tomorrow it's something that we would have to take a lot of planning a lot of research I think to decide, we would have to decide who would we would swerve to get that database started are we going to look at only prisoners are we going to look at the general public when you speak about DNA a lot of people are very apprehensive about giving that information because that is giving a lot of yourself to a government or a nation so all of that needs to be taken into consideration what does the public as much as the public decides or is very adamant that we should have a database they need to also understand what it would take to put a database up we'd need legislation to decide who gets in how we are going to look at the data how is it regulated so there's a lot to consider it is not something that I would say we would never do however it's something that we would have to consider all look at everything we would definitely look at the UK experience because I know that the UK they were the first to bring on a database so their experience and what their trials or their chimes are would be very important to us to look at and I think Miss Popo also we need to understand that as Joy says imagine molecular medicine and molecular technologies move so far that now DNA can begin to tell us a lot of things that it couldn't tell us before what diseases are you prone to so for instance people who have access to that information can then begin to make decisions about you based on your DNA profile so should you get an insurance should you get a job or not get a job and looking at the DNA database it's very important that we do it in a way in which we can ensure that it achieves the objectives and doesn't hurt people definitely anybody else with a question from the UNS Comprehensive Secondary School my question today is are there any measures put in place for abused children like psychological help, physical help like do you all have places where they can stay and how do you all proceed when you get a case of child abuse or child abuse okay thank you Miss Maru that's a very good question there is a protocol and procedure for managing child abuse so physical, sexual even emotional abuse there is a procedure and there will be conversation and presentations especially in the first session which will be looking at this yes you'd appreciate that very often the case of child abuse probably first comes to the attention of a doctor that's often where it starts and that doctor has a responsibility to ensure that child and that family don't get the medical care they get informed about the medical legal ramifications and implications and also they get the psychological counseling that you are talking about and one of the deficiencies so although we know what needs to be done and we have the processes and we have the procedures let me tell you what the deficiency is two real areas of big deficiency one we do not have enough of the psychologists and the counselors to handle the load of people and families that need this care and because there are many a lot of children are in this situation a lot of families in this situation we do not have enough of a counselor so there needs to be a strategy to address counselors and social workers to address the problem the other area that I think is very important and this is for the general public is the access there are a lot of children that are abused and never come to the attention of the authorities they are never taken to a doctor they are never taken to a social worker or whatever communities and families very often hide child maltreatment and child abuse one of the things we would like to do is dispel that and our criminal law is very clear if you are an adult and you know that a child is being abused and you do not report that is a criminal offence under our criminal code a doctor, a nurse, a policeman whatever so it is very important that I think so the law is one thing but for me as human beings, as a parent as a citizen it is important that every citizen in this country makes it their mandate to protect every child child in your home or in your neighbor's house it is our responsibility if we know a child is being maltreated or abused it is our responsibility to bring that to the attention of the authorities so that the situation can be corrected because the long term implications of child abuse are dire they are awful not it causes physical disease I can tell you even diabetes, hypertension and cancer is related to adverse childhood experiences as well as of course it causes great antisocial behavior a lot of crime, violence irresponsible sexual behavior etc emanates from unresolved child abuse okay hold that thought Dr. King we'll take a break and we'll come right back to you in St. Lucia cancer is the second leading cause of death one in every six St. Lucia males and one in every five St. Lucia females will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime smoking alcohol lack of exercise stress and poor eating habits increase the risk of cancer changing these is our best chance at preventing up to 50% of cancer sometimes though in spite of these efforts cancer still happens knowing what to look for is our second best chance for early detection and treatment be informed let's talk contact us at St. Lucia Cancer Society on 4-5-2-1-5-3-8 thank you for staying with us dear viewers and we go right back to Dr. King who was making a very interesting point that sometimes some persons are how they are because they were abused yes and in fact I would like to actually yield to our officer as well to add to the about child abuse reporting which was really the question that we were answering so good morning everyone when a report of sexual assault is received at the VPT we would interview that child in the presence of a mother or a social worker thereafter we would accompany the child to the hospital or a private doctor while at the hospital the child will be medically examined using the sexual assault evidence collection kit and after that we would go to visit the crime scene at the crime scene the scenes of crime officer would collect exhibits for analysis after that is done we would interview other possible witnesses in the matter and then when we have collected all of that we would arrest the perpetrators and interview and the charging process when the perpetrator is arrested we would take non intimate samples and also where possible and also intimate samples that would be done by a doctor then we take the matter to court the sexual assault evidence collection kit and the evidence that we would have collected the DNA that would have collected from the perpetrator is submitted to the lab for analysis thank you for that and you may be understand by if you could elaborate on anything else but I would like to now go back to the the scientists representing the lab here to find out whether we have successfully taken matters to court what has been the outcomes have we been able to mail the suspects you know always an area that yes well as copper Augustine alluded to after the evidence is collected it is submitted to the lab and we as a scientist we have to examine the evidence we do the testing of the evidence in my case I would do body fluid identification so I would identify blood, semen saliva which are the common sources of DNA after which Mrs. Quinlan would do the DNA analysis to determine whose body fluid it is and then we would generate a report from our findings which would now be used by the prosecution for prosecuting the matter the sexual assault matter in terms of successes I can't say that the evidence that has been presented before the court I can't say how many but I can say that evidence has been used in the court forensic evidence has been used in matters and I believe there have been convictions they don't necessarily get reported as we would like to but we do get convictions from the forensic evidence we are trained and we do follow international standards as much as possible we have implemented international standards so our processes, our procedures are of aligned to what everybody else is doing in the international field of forensic science so with five minutes left I would like to ask the panel to weigh in on the fact that one has to voluntarily provide their body fluids if that is needed with any a lot of sexual assault cases hinge on DNA evidence so for us as a laboratory to successfully process any case we would require reference samples so yes we have evidence but we need something to compare the evidence to so we would need to collect reference samples from the victim to compare with the evidence as well as the potential suspects that would probably come up in investigations to either eliminate the suspect or to include them into the case and hopefully get it through to court like Miss Compton said there are several cases that have been to court some of them don't even get to court because as soon as the evidence is presented there is so much overwhelming evidence that the suspects most of the time they plead guilty and it never gets to court and like Miss Compton said what happens what we find is that there's not a lot of court reporting to let the public know what is happening so a lot of the time a lot of the questions come do we even do that in St. Lucia we all have that and everybody looks so surprised but I could say that I have actually worked on cases in St. Lucia I have done several of them and they have gone to court and we have people in prison because of the any evidence that has been worked on in St. Lucia with our limited time I would like to find out whether anybody else has some good impression to post he doesn't want to ask the question but we have him he's like no I don't want to go good morning my name is Kisi Lawrence from the St. Joseph's convent my question is as an aspiring forensic scientist I would like to know if the St. Lucia forensic science lab offer young people opportunities to know more about the field and the lab yes we do we have actually hosted several interns at the laboratory and we are always willing to assist we are willing if you want us to come to your schools to discuss forensics if you want any kind of advice we are always willing to help because it is a growing field and I think that it's important that you as young people understand what channels, what paths need to be taken to get to your goals and your dreams it's a very exciting field and you can do like we discussed earlier we can do so many different things with forensics we welcome you if you want to call us if you want to invite us to your school we are ready and willing to come in and on that note I would like to invite the panelists to share your final thoughts with us before we bring our discussion here to a conclusion okay I just want to say that why this is a two-day symposium we want to think of it as director has rightly said we want to think of it as a movement it's not just about knowledge sharing but it also helps to drive policy to make changes to implement policies and procedures that would help to address the burning issue of our children and mild treatment and abuse so stemming from this I hope that all of the stakeholders that we can now go back to our various countries and implement what needs to be done in order for us to minimize this burning issue that we have in the Caribbean Jane I'd like to see it built on from what you've already got a good ground level and cross-pollinate between the different disciplines I think it's important you all understand the different areas that you work in between the scientists the medics, the police and make things quicker and slicker for the end goal really of sorting things out well I think I'd like to my final message would be to thank people I'd like to thank Dr Alfredo Walker for his great work with us not only for the symposium but in building our capacity in the forensic sciences I really want to commend him publicly on that I'd like to commend the University of Ottawa for the team for that great support for the symposium I'd like to thank the Ontario Forensic Science Services for Dr Michael Polannon for reaching out and training us in a very tangible way to improve the forensic pathology services last but not least I'd like to thank the Vincentian authorities who were gracious enough to allow Saint Lucia to host what was originally their symposium to host it in Saint Lucia I really want to thank them because I think this is a fantastic advocacy milestone for us in the forensic services in Saint Lucia and I want the general public to really get on board and criminal issues or crime we need all hands on deck everybody has a role to play in solving crime but on that note we've heard Dr King I would like to thank our panelists our audience this has been a special discussion on the fourth annual Caribbean Forensic and Medical Legal Symposium which will be held in Saint Lucia on the 15th and 16th of November