Independent Review of Police Digital Forensic Evidence

Digital evidence is now central to most serious criminal prosecutions. Mobile phones, computers, cloud data and communications records often form the backbone of the Crown case. Yet police digital forensic analysis is not infallible. Errors, omissions, selective interpretation and disclosure failures occur more often than is acknowledged.

Delve Forensic provides independent review of police digital forensic evidence in New Zealand, assisting defence counsel to critically assess the reliability, completeness and interpretation of prosecution digital evidence.

You should consider an independent review of police digital forensic evidence when:

• Police analysis appears incomplete, selective, or unclear
• Key devices, data sources, or time periods have not been examined
• Disclosure is late, partial, or raises unexplained gaps
• Conclusions appear to overreach the underlying data
• Alternative interpretations have not been explored
• Digital timelines do not align with witness or physical evidence
• The case turns on issues of intent, knowledge, presence, or consent

In many cases, weaknesses are not obvious on first reading. They emerge only through careful technical scrutiny by an experienced independent analyst.

An independent forensic review goes beyond simply checking police work. It involves a structured reassessment of:

• Acquisition methodology
  Whether data was correctly captured, preserved, and verified
• Scope of examination
  What was examined — and what was not
• Analytical methods
  Tool usage, configuration, filtering, and interpretation
• Assumptions and inferences
  Whether conclusions are supported by the data
• Disclosure compliance
  Identification of undisclosed material, late disclosure, or overlooked artefacts
• Alternative interpretations
  Plausible explanations inconsistent with the prosecution theory

Where appropriate, I replicate or exceed police analysis using independent forensic tooling and bespoke analytical techniques.

I am a former New Zealand Police digital forensic analyst, with frontline operational experience and deep familiarity with police forensic workflows, constraints and institutional assumptions. This insight allows me to identify issues that civilian analysts often miss.

Defence counsel benefit from:

• Rapid identification of evidential weaknesses
• Clear articulation of technical issues in legally useful language
• Practical lines for cross-examination
• Court-ready reporting, not raw technical output

My duty is to the court. I act independently, without institutional bias or conflict of interest.