Bias and integrity

Now here is a tricky subject. So tricky that I have never seen or heard it discussed in this field.
I hope that all professionals value their integrity. The trust and faith that victims, authorities and clients place with them. But there are pressures on that integrity:
Victims in need of revenge, frequent offenders who may not deserve the benefit of the doubt, fire officers who failed to fully extinguish a previous fire, an employee who may lose his job, the tennent who may be evicted, the uninsured, the underinsured the list is long. And it is the fire investigator or fire expert who may be pivotal in the outcome for those persons.

It may appear callous and hard-faced to declare one's findings with no apparent regard for the effect on others but that is how it must be. I have been in these positions many times: I have had to tell surviving relatives that the fire that caused the death of their loved one was their fault. I have told a friend and colleague that he had failed to ensure a previous fire had been properly extinguished (a re-kindled fire) and I have told a paying client that he was responsible for the fire he was paying me to investigate!
These are difficult moments but rigid holding to the truth no matter what the findings makes the good news more pleasureable: To tell a man he has been wrongly accused of arson and to see it through to trial. To discover, prove and have withdrawn from sale a defective product. To tell a fire officer that the second fire in the same propery was in fact arson or to assist an insurance recovery.

This is easy when it is all about facts but often there are suppositions and informed judgements. Assessments as to the weight or significance to be applied to witness statements, efficiencies of systems or management. Even the science of fire and its application to real events are often debatable. At a single fire incident there may be up to six investigators. Each representing a different party or authority. Each with their own reasons to be there and sometimes seeking different information. Police, Fire Service, agents for insurers or loss adjusters for the building, the contents or business loss, loss assessors and private investigators.

The facts of any investigation are rarely disputed but the less well-defined or clear aspects can be given bias or exagerration according to the pressures mentioned above. Again the professional investigator will avoid this pitfall, particularly if the incident involves other investigators, for those investigators will see that bias or it will show in court.

What can and is reasonably done is to find extenuating circumstances. Plus factors if you like. In my report, for example, of the re-kindled fire I was able to look deeper and to show that the fire officer had in fact not been negligent at all. Just unlucky. In fatal fire reports it is right and proper to find ways to make the truth easier to bear.

I certainly value my integrity and hold to the truth. In private practise I sometimes need to inform clients that my findings may not be in their favour and when engaged overseas it is sometimes advisable to take payment upfront!