Important Acts

Evidence Act

There are two Evidence Acts. These are:

• The Canadian Evidence Act
• The Ontario Evidence Act

Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

As a Security Guard in Ontario you will be governed under the Provincial Evidence Act for most of the offences that you will deal with that are of a serious nature. The collection of and presentation of video evidence is regulated by both the Ontario Evidence Act and PIPEDA. More than likely the only evidence you will have to give will be from the issuance of Parking Enforcement activities in traffic court.

Evidence Preparation and Collection

Evidence preparation is very important. You will often be in a position to affect evidence, so for any serious crime, remember:

• Do not touch anything.
• Secure the area and call the police
• Do not let anyone in until the police arrive and then they are in charge.
• Record everything you have seen and or touched.
• Do not leave the crime scene until police advise you to do so.
• Do not disclose information to the media or others not directly involved with the crime scene.

Principles of Evidence Collection

Collecting evidence is a very difficult task for most contract security as there is no way to properly secure, preserve and maintain continuity of evidence.

The following six steps should be followed when you encounter material you think might be evidence.

• Collect the evidence
• Secure the material
• Preserve the evidence
• Identify the items
• Maintain continuity of evidence
• Log what you collect

Being able to identify evidence, document, collect and package evidence correctly from a crime scene is a difficult task. The following steps cover the basics. Remember it is always best to leave the collection of evidence to the professionals, if possible.

Collecting Evidence

Identify what evidence is relevant to your investigation.

Once it has been identified, then record all the details before actually collecting. Location, Temperature, Preliminary Identification, colours etc. must be recorded in your memo book.

Photograph the evidence and use a scale (small ruler to assist with dimensions). Secure the evidence in a plastic bag and seal the bag with evidence tape and fill out an evidence tag. To be admissible in a court of law, physical evidence must be properly documented and be identified by every person that has handled it. This ‘chain of custody’ begins with the person who first collected the physical evidence.

Preserving evidence means that the evidence is not cross contaminated. Ensure that each piece of evidence is sealed in its own evidence bag. Always sign across the evidence tape with initials and date of collection.

Identify the item fully on the evidence tag and attach it to the bag. A property receipt is attached to the evidence package and must be signed over to the evidence custodian.

Every time the evidence is handled, the property receipt needs to be amended and the property log needs to be up-dated