New Body Collection Series

During 2012 much thought and planning by the SAPS Forensic Unit went into restructuring the all-in-one D1 Adult Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit. It was felt that not every case of sexual assault required a full body evidence collection to be performed. This lead to unnecessary wastage of components, created a more drawn out examination procedure and ultimately was a waste of financial resources.

The new design layout effectively has divided the previous D1 kit into 5 more focused and refined specialty kits. (known as Body Collection Series)

The new D1 Adult Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit still exists but now basically only contains a bag for panties, a bag for a sanitary pad and a box for a tampon, plus 3 swabs for ano-genital swabbing and should only take about 10 to 15 minutes to perform.

The other sections found in the previous D1 kit such as clothing, hair, oral swab and DNA evidence from the body are now packaged into separate evidence collection kits that may be used when required.

Once the extent of the assault on the patient has been determined an assessment can be made on which kits will be required to collect the evidence. For example:

• If the patient was forced to perform oral sex, a DB DNA Reference Sample Collection Kit would be required
• If the clothing of the patient contains possible forensic evidence such as semen, the perpetrators blood and/or saliva or trace evidence such as dirt or fibers, then a D5 Clothing Collection Kit must be used.
• If additional proof of a crime is to be collected, such as trace evidence from the hair (both scalp and pubic) then the D3 Reference Hair Samples Collection Kit must be used.
• If the patient’s body shows evidence of bite marks, nail scratches or areas where the perpetrators saliva may have been left after a lick, kisses or spitting, a D2 Evidence from Body Collection Kit must be used.

To recap. If you have performed an examination on a patient of sexual assault to collect evidence in the recent past, you would have used an SAPS – D1 Adult Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit from Acino Forensics. The examination probably took you close to 2 hours to perform as you were asked to do a full-body examination, ranging from, clothing collection through to genital swabbing. If your patient had been raped by her husband for example, most of these steps were unnecessary as the attacker is already known and only proof of penetrative sex was required. This new “Body Collection Series” makes more sense as in this case you would have only needed one kit, the D1 Kit.

“The New Body Collection Series”

D1 Adult Sexual Assault Evidence Collection Kit

A kit to swab the ano-genital area of your patient in search for semen and saliva evidence.

 

D2 DNA Evidence from Body Collection Kit

A kit used to collect evidence from your patents body such as saliva round a bite mark, evidence under finger nails, perpetrators blood and debris from the scene.

 

D3 Reference Hair Samples Collection Kit

A kit used to collect evidence from your patents body such as saliva round a bite mark, evidence under finger nails, perpetrators blood and debris from the scene.

 

D5 Clothing Collection Kit

A kit used to collect your patients clothing that may contain evidence from the crime scene or body fluids from the perpetrator.

 

DB DNA Reference Sample Collection Kit

A kit used to collect evidence and DNA from your patents mouth. Also known as Buccal Swabbing.