Personal examination of victims and offenders in order to register and assess lesions, ensure material for potential alcohol and medicine/narcotics analyses and secure traces (primarily DNA) which can be used in police investigations. If a person examined has injuries requiring treatment, he or she is referred to other doctors or hospital departments.
Following the personal examination, a declaration is prepared presenting a brief description of the case, a description of the lesions identified during the examination, an assessment of how and when the lesions arose and an assessment of the danger of the violence used and the risk of after-effects.
The examinations are performed by the department's doctors on duty who can be called in by the police at all hours to carry out the examinations for the police.
Adult victims of violence: This group comprises persons exposed to physical violence in the form of punches, kicks, grip around the throat, cuts, stabs and shots.
Sexual abuse against adults: Comprises rape, rape attempt and other criminal sexual offences. In addition to a thorough examination of the entire body for lesions, the examinations include an examination of the genital organs. An important part of the examination is to secure biological traces, e.g. DNA in the face and on both hands by wiping, sperm stains on the skin, vaginal, rectal or oral secretions to study for sperm cells or subject to DNA analysis as well as nail scrapings.
Examination of victims of sexualised violence is carried out at one of the Centres for Victims of Sexual Abuse. The examinations are carried out by doctors affiliated to the department with the assistance of a nurse. The victims may be referred to specialists for further examination or aftercare treatment. Also, victims are offered psychological counselling.
The Centre for Victims of Sexual Abuse is open 24 hours a day. Victims do not need to report to the police prior to contacting the centre and will be offered the same kind of examination as victims having reported their offence to the police, including an offer to secure the traces. This procedure is followed to ensure that the traces are not lost.
Examination of suspect offenders is carried out primarily with the purpose of detecting lesions which may have been caused during the offence with which they are charged. Urine and blood samples are secured to check whether the offenders have been under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or medicines, and it is also important to secure traces, e.g. blood stains and DNA. Most of the offenders examined are charged with violence and sexual abuse, but fire-raisers, bank robbers and others may also be examined.
Children exposed to violence: Cases of physical violence against children subject to forensic investigation often involve child abuse (battered child syndrome). The investigation includes describing and assessing the lesions which requires extensive experience – when doing the assessment and preparing the declarations for legal use. Investigation of serious acute cases often involve an examination in the paediatric departments in collaboration with paediatricians and an assessment of the individual child’s age-related development.
Sexually abused children: This group comprises children who are victims of acute abuse, and examination of these children requires a special approach from the examining doctor. As in adults, the examinations often involve a description, registration of lesions and securing the traces.
A large group of the children examined are, however, children who have been exposed to sexual abuse before, often perpetrated by family members or other relatives. The traces of this previous sexual abuse are often sparse or totally healed, depending on the child’s age.
Since the findings may be difficult to interpret, these examinations are centralised and performed only at the Centre for Abused Children (CBO), which is located at Aarhus University Hospital in close connection to the Department of Forensic Medicine. Paediatricians, nurses, psychologists and social workers are affiliated to the centre. Currently, examinations are performed for all police districts in Jutland with a total of approx. 50 examinations per year of this kind.
At Børnehus Midt, children may be video-interrogated by specialist police.
Reports of abused children are often primarily submitted to the social authorities according to the Danish Act on Social Services (Lov om social service). Child abuse is a difficult issue, which requires specialist knowledge from the police investigators and the examining doctors. The children are not interrogated during the examination. Interrogations are carried out by the police only, often using video.
Examination of the genital organs requires special equipment in the form of a colposcope (a kind of magnifier), which enables minimal contact. The examiner uses no instruments and does not perform a gynaecological examination.
Examination of victims of torture constitutes a specific issue. The examinations are ordered by the Danish Immigration Service with a view to determining whether the victims are entitled to asylum in Denmark. The examinations involve checking for visible traces of torture. It may be a challenging task to assess the lesions due to their age and difficulty determining how they arose, and not least because torture methods are often of a kind that rarely leave any physical traces. These examinations are supplemented with psychiatric examinations in order to reveal any psychological sequelae of the torture. Additionally, the examinations may be supplemented with statements from specialists, including orthopaedic surgeons, radiologists, ear specialists and dentists.