In this episode of Forensic Fix, host Adam Firman and guest Paul Gullon-Scott discuss the often-overlooked psychological toll of working in digital forensics. They explore the mental health challenges faced by digital forensic investigators, including PTSD, burnout, and anxiety, and the importance of addressing these issues within law enforcement. Paul shares his journey from being a digital forensic investigator to advocating for mental health support in the field, highlighting the need for better resources and training for those exposed to traumatic content. The conversation also touches on the role of technology in combating child exploitation and the differences in mental health support between law enforcement and the NHS. In this conversation, Paul Gullon-Scott and Adam Firman delve into the critical issues surrounding mental health in the field of digital forensics. They discuss the overwhelming stressors faced by professionals in this area, the dangers of unsupervised internet access for children, and the need for robust mental health support systems. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of proactive measures, tailored services, and standardized guidelines to safeguard the well-being of those working in digital forensics. The speakers share personal insights and experiences, advocating for a shift from reactive to proactive mental health approaches within law enforcement and forensic settings.
Be sure to connect with Paul on LinkedIn - Paul Gullon-Scott Bsc MA MSc MSc FMBPSS | LinkedIn
Check out some of the articles mentioned by Paul, they can be found on Forensic Focus - Here is the latest article - Preventative Vs Reactive Approaches To Mental Health In Digital Forensics - Forensic Focus
Adam Firman (00:01.431)
So hello and welcome to episode 20 of Forensic Fix, a podcast brought to you from MSAB, where we invite guests from the industry to discuss the latest news and digital forensics, current issues, and a general chat about all things digital forensics and investigation. So I'm your host, Adam Firman a tech evangelist here with MSAB. So I'm absolutely delighted to announce that we have Paul Gullum-Scott joining us for episode 20. And this episode was quickly organized.
following a LinkedIn post that I made at the beginning of April in 25. Now this post highlighted the emotional toll of digital investigations. How we can openly talk about the latest tools and methods, but we do not talk enough about the psychological impact that comes with this job. Now over the years, I've been fortunate and unfortunate to work on cases that involve child abuse, victims who have lost their entire life savings to fraudsters,
fatal car collisions, torture, abuse and murder amongst other horrific things that no person should ever have to witness. Now I'm extremely vocal about my concerns that we're not looking after the guys and girls who continue to be exposed to this content daily. And I use LinkedIn and other platforms to try and engage conversation. And thankfully this post struck a chord with a lot of people. Now one of those people was Paul.
I became aware of Paul through the great work he's doing with Forensic Focus, where he's currently publishing articles about this very subject. So a warm welcome to Paul and a huge thank you for agreeing to come on the podcast at short notice. And normally I give the listeners a few facts about my guest background, but after looking at your extensive journey, which is incredibly inspiring and may I say unique, I thought it was best to let you explain the whys and how of how you're here. So
Paul Gullon-Scott (01:43.096)
Thanks for having me.
Adam Firman (01:59.297)
Paul, welcome. Could you give our listeners an insight to the journey you've taken to become specialized and involved with the wellbeing and mental health issues that face our ex-colleagues in law enforcement?
Paul Gullon-Scott (02:03.84)
Ahem.
Paul Gullon-Scott (02:11.982)
Yeah, sure. And thank you for the opportunity to come on and talk to you today, Adam. I'm really pleased you're also flying the flag for mental health and well-being in digital forensics. My name is Paul Gullen Scott. I began my journey back in 1994 when I first started working for Northumbria Police.
A great chunk of my service, 14 years in total, was spent working as a practitioner, a practitioner digital forensic investigator, during which, as you can imagine, well, as you know, Adam, you're exposed to the depths, the absolute depths of humanity. I've spoke to many, many people about that and they...
they tell me that,
I can imagine what you see during that job, but you've really can't and there is absolutely no way you can prepare yourself for entering that world. the course of the course of the 14 years as a digital forensic investigator, I began to notice that some of my highly skilled and highly qualified colleagues were closing the door on the lab.
and never returning. And that at the same time, I was doing my first masters in psychology. So I started to think, you know, this is not sustainable. And I started to research the subject and I discovered there was actually a very, there was a lot of research which had actually been done in this area historically.
Paul Gullon-Scott (04:07.352)
But it was all in America, in the US. So I read as much as I possibly could, anything that I could find in relation to mental health and well-being in digital forensics. And I approached the then manager of the unit who is who was, well, is a very forward thinking chap, Richard. And we discussed doing something, putting something in place to
and protect the DFIs who were working in the lab at that time and he said yeah I think it's a great idea crack on do it so I did so from the evidence-based research that I had accumulated I was able to identify the main stressors and the main stressors are a single theme right throughout
all of the research that's ever been done into this. the stressors are well established in research and the stressors are post-traumatic stress, burnout, anxiety.
and yet general stress. So I haven't identified the stressors. I then had a look at the mental health provision that we had at the time.
which was an annual checkup by our employment service practitioners.
Adam Firman (05:51.767)
So is that like a force medic or?
Paul Gullon-Scott (05:53.824)
It was it's well, it's an external company now. And it has been for a long time now. We used to have internal an internal department that dealt with it, but obviously due to cuts. We lost it, which is unfortunate.
Paul Gullon-Scott (06:16.302)
So.
Paul Gullon-Scott (06:20.204)
Discussions were had because I became aware that the mental health support that we had were actually only tested for PTSD and they weren't actually tested for the other three mental health stressors that DFIs can become susceptible to. Excuse me.
Paul Gullon-Scott (06:45.496)
So talks were had with them and it was decided that they would then begin to use clinical instruments to measure the levels of the other three stresses, which they weren't then measuring for. The other thing, the other really good thing that came off the back of that was I did research around how to reduce the exposure to
decent material and I realized that the CPS certainly here in the UK actually put I'll explain this they put a number on what they consider a large collection excuse me I've got a bit of a cold
So the CPS consider a large collection at either 250 category A's. Now for the listeners who don't understand category A involves penetrative sexual activity with a child or a thousand across all three categories.
At which point the sets and guidelines are open. You don't need to grade any further. Now at the time we were grading everything. So we were grading thousands upon thousands upon thousands of images and videos.
Adam Firman (08:22.977)
But and this is and you and I both speaking from a UK background here and it may be different across the globe, but we can we come from a small little island, but with a lot of different police forces all doing things completely different. And my police force was very you would review every every piece of content because although certain images were known and known hashes, you may always have that one victim who's not yet identified.
Paul Gullon-Scott (08:29.422)
Mm.
Paul Gullon-Scott (08:38.104)
Correct.
Adam Firman (08:52.011)
which is an unknown hash and an unknown file. So our sort of mantra was check everything. But we were a relatively smaller force and could, well, we still had backlogs, but compared to the bigger major cities who probably had to rely on CPS guidelines. And once they got their number, they moved on to the next job. But it's just alarming the sheer volume.
Paul Gullon-Scott (09:16.756)
It is it is. I mean, you can have one job which might have, you know, a handful of images. Your next job might have tens of thousands. And that's not unusual. I would like to say it was, but it's not. So the grading policy that was brought in. Was aimed at combining the power of kid.
which obviously as we both know automatically categorizes known images along with the CPS guidelines but also encompassing the victim ID process. So as you've just said in certainly Cade is incapable of identifying first generation images and for the benefit of people watching.
first generation image is something that is created by an individual who has an interest in a sexual interest in children but has never been seen before. So the hash value of that image isn't yet categorized by Cade. So by combining the CPS guidelines, the automation of Cade.
and the victim ID process, we were able to vastly cut down on the number of images that DFIs were exposed to, which helped, which increased resilience of the DFIs in the unit.
Adam Firman (10:54.135)
Yeah, because I was saying to you off air that, but before I joined the unit, I had a very, very good sergeant who led the unit and he sort of explained to me that there's, you can't prepare for this role. And what he was trying to say to me was that I can't sit there and say to him, I'm going to be okay with you in this stuff, because it's one of those things that until you've been exposed to it, you don't know if you can handle it. And
Paul Gullon-Scott (11:20.238)
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Adam Firman (11:23.283)
And another thing that started happening in our force, and you've studied this now up and down the country, is we were passing a lot of the grading back to everyday officers. So we were passing initial grading back to officers. And the reason and sort of the mindset behind this was because children no longer look like children. So we became quite harsh in our grading that if we had an element of doubt,
we would automatically not grade it because that's how we were trained that if we had a doubt, a jury would have a doubt. However, it's very hard for us to look at a victim of 16 years of age where we would probably say, yep, it's a lawful image or there's that doubt. Whereas the officer in the case whose job it was would know that victim would then grade it. So that was the mindset, but these people are less exposed to this content. They're not reviewing it every day and
Paul Gullon-Scott (11:56.44)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Adam Firman (12:22.187)
Yeah, it just opens another can of worms.
Paul Gullon-Scott (12:25.006)
Well, like you when I was serving, when I was working as a DFI, I would quite often bring the OIC of the case who I was working on and say, right, OK, I found X amount of indecent images. Would you like to come and have a look at the sample? And nine out of 10 times it was no. I absolutely do not.
And who would?
Adam Firman (12:51.477)
Yeah, and thinking back now, it comes across to me that there would have been far better ways for us to just crop a headshot and share and say, is this your victim or even be supplied with the victim photo before continuing our review. But yeah, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Paul Gullon-Scott (13:10.016)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Isn't it just...
Adam Firman (13:19.553)
So in your current role, obviously you've switched from law enforcement. And then what did you immediately do after law enforcement?
Paul Gullon-Scott (13:29.346)
Well, in my last few years, I began to retreat and I've always had an interest in psychology. And it was further entrenched in the research that I've been doing around the mental health of DFIs. So I decided to pursue that when I left policing. I currently work as a higher assistant psychologist within the NHS now.
And I continue my research into the mental health of DFI. In fact, I've recently just come back from Poland where I asked to pop over there. I was asked to go to a police academy over there and give a couple of lectures on the mental health effects of working in digital forensics.
and it was it was a really good exercise it was a really good thing to do and they've benefited hugely from it.
Adam Firman (14:29.143)
Do you see any, I've got personal sort of experience of friends who weren't DFIRs, but they worked in the police and say, for example, a traffic officer who goes to five fatals back to back and they're single crewed because of budget cuts. They've got no one to return to and talk to and they go home and expect to act as per normal. And I've got ex colleagues who have now left because of PTSD and there was no support for them.
Paul Gullon-Scott (14:58.146)
Yeah, I've got a very good friend of mine who is an ex-murder detective. He I mean, he and we're both sort of retired from policing now, but he and I are still really firm friends and stay in touch. And he still suffers quite badly from PTSD as a result of what he was exposed to in those investigations. So the stresses that DFIs. Cancer come to aren't solely
tied to them. They stretch across policing, across all forms of policing. I mean, you talk about the, you know, being a traffic officer. I think because traffic units are so small and they can be so understaffed at times, the amount of repeated fails that a traffic cop has to go to and deal with and then
Adam Firman (15:34.379)
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (15:55.746)
go home and sit and have tea with his wife and act like it's another day at the office. I don't care who you are, it will affect you at some point. It will.
Adam Firman (15:59.606)
Nothing's happened here.
Adam Firman (16:06.007)
you and there's almost there's almost a stigma as well that it's not I certainly didn't when I first went into that unit I don't think I'd have dared talk to other people about if something did affect me because there's that stigma that come on you're a police officer chin up on to the next job
Paul Gullon-Scott (16:27.09)
Yes, exactly. And I think this is kind of echoes of a conversation that I was having this afternoon, actually. If someone comes along and says, you know what you signed up for, whether it be digital forensics, whether it be a traffic cop, whether it be a patrol cop on the street. They haven't done that job. They haven't experienced it first hand because of the did.
They would never say that to you.
Adam Firman (16:58.433)
Yeah. And it's amazing how many, like we both come from the DFI sort of background and most people automatically, when they think about that and they learn what you do, they automatically think of child abuse and sort of child abuse imagery. But I remember the first job that sort of affected me was a fraud. And it was two brothers who were running a financial practice and I can talk about it now because it's all been cleared up in court.
Paul Gullon-Scott (17:13.772)
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Firman (17:28.519)
they were investing pensioners money and basically dwindling it away going to Dubai having concierges and all of the work that I did around it sort of documented the lifestyle they were having on other people's life savings and it was the first sort of job I'd done that was relatable to me because my parents were then approaching retirement and it just sort of got me thinking about
if that happened to my parents. And that's when it starts playing on your mind is when you can relate to a job is when it starts planning. And it wasn't anything to do with horrific images. I was reading emails about holidays to Dubai, but it sort of, because I could relate to it and I could relate to the victims. That one I took home.
Paul Gullon-Scott (18:19.456)
It's very interesting you say that because again, it's something that you talked about when we were having a little chat offline and you mentioned about having a child having a I think it was a son. And it's life changes like that. You can be traveling along like a duck, you know, swimming along the lake quite serenely and then.
A major life change will occur which could well be the birth of your own child and then you will go back to work and you could see something relating to say the same age of your child and it will trigger something inside. We are only human at the end of the day, we are not machines and because
you've got that relatability with the victim that you're seeing. It will absolutely and naturally trigger those feelings of shock, horror. That could be my child. And that's when the stressor start to kick in.
Adam Firman (19:33.227)
Yeah, I sort of, I knew my time was, was coming to an end of sort of being able to deal with that content and part of me and I didn't want to, to leave a forensic unit and go back to CID or anything because I, I didn't want to lose that experience of, of helping others. So that's sort of why I made my transition, but I sort of told you I fare that
my old unit took away mandatory counselling and then sort of switched it to an online assessment and self-referral which to me is just crazy and as far as I'm aware it's still the same. It's still the same.
Paul Gullon-Scott (20:04.558)
I
Paul Gullon-Scott (20:15.052)
have to say I really don't like the idea of online assessment. mean, yes, you can have a team's call with someone, but it's not the same as sitting in the room with them, talking to them and watching the body language. It's very different. Because that person is in, say, they're in a space where they feel really comfortable and relaxed and stuff.
as opposed to being face to face with a counselor or someone who's delivering an intervention.
Adam Firman (20:49.995)
Yeah. I hate to alarm you, Paul. This wasn't even a video call. This was an online tick box.
Adam Firman (20:59.797)
Yes. Yes.
Adam Firman (21:08.775)
And we spoke about this that we've seen on a national level how everybody's different. I've seen on a global level how different approaches are different. really that globally people are doing the same job. They're being exposed. And the one area that really concerns me and like we've both got ex law enforcement backgrounds, but what concerns me are these big tech companies who are probably hiring 18 year olds and paying them barely nothing.
to sit and moderate that content.
Paul Gullon-Scott (21:41.46)
Again, I was just talking about this subject this afternoon, actually, because it came up because of the lawsuits that have been filed against Meta since 2020. yeah, 2020. So the first one occurred against Facebook in 2020 and they were successfully sued because the content moderators weren't receiving the right training or the right standard of training. Excuse me.
Adam Firman (21:53.303)
Mm-hmm.
Paul Gullon-Scott (22:11.778)
Then again, they were sued again, I think it was 2022 and there's a current lawsuit which is ongoing and which was recently publicized. And I think that's something that employers don't actually seriously consider the damage to reputation that a lawsuit could have.
Adam Firman (22:35.211)
Yeah. And I've spoken about this on this podcast before, I should imagine you're aware of it. When Apple announced that they were going to start scanning iCloud for known hashes and then quickly did a U-turn on that, I just...
Paul Gullon-Scott (22:45.39)
Yeah.
Adam Firman (22:55.041)
People are quite happy for Apple to scan your photo library so you can quickly sort your photos of your dog. So we know they're doing this tech, they're running this sort of technology already. But why? Yeah, I just can't begin to understand why people are against this sort of invasion of their privacy, which is what they see it as.
Paul Gullon-Scott (22:57.569)
you
Paul Gullon-Scott (23:17.32)
If you are not doing anything wrong and you have no interest in illegal imagery, say, why should you be bothered if Apple are running non-hashes against the photoset that you might hold in the cloud?
Adam Firman (23:36.343)
because we know internet service providers are doing it. They're watching what goes across. Yeah. So, yeah, I just don't see why Apple had to. They don't announce that they run their technology over our and Android are the same. So I'm not just single and Apple out here, but that they run their technology over our photos every night to help us classify photos of Deidre or a dog. So.
Paul Gullon-Scott (23:39.362)
Yeah, of course, yeah.
Adam Firman (24:03.499)
We know they're running this technology, but they don't openly say, by the way, we're scanning all your photos. I don't see why they had to announce it the way they did if they really wanted to help.
Paul Gullon-Scott (24:14.006)
I mean, if they really wanted to help, they could have done it anonymously and then submitted anonymous reports to whichever police and authority that governs the area where that phone's pinging from.
Adam Firman (24:25.205)
Yeah, but if that was to ever come out.
Paul Gullon-Scott (24:29.762)
Well, the damage, well, would it be damage to the company?
Adam Firman (24:35.201)
Would they want to risk it, Paul?
Paul Gullon-Scott (24:38.528)
I would say not. I would say not.
Adam Firman (24:39.871)
Yeah, and that's where and that's where financial reward is outweighing.
wellbeing of people dealing with this content and wellbeing of victims and yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (24:53.484)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've often wondered why the likes of, you know, other cloud services, you know, Dropbox, OneDrive, et cetera, et couldn't set up their own kid server or similar.
similar database and scan their cloud services and then I identify where where illegal imagery is being stored and send that off to you know whichever police and authority around the world could exercise a warrant.
Adam Firman (25:30.455)
I noticed today and I haven't had a chance to read it fully but even the Internet Watch Foundation are offering their software now aren't they into organisations.
Paul Gullon-Scott (25:38.05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's, you know, that's something that people should be embracing as far as I'm concerned.
Adam Firman (25:42.059)
And
Adam Firman (25:45.717)
Yeah, yeah, they should be. And so you've gone from law enforcement to the NHS and for those globally, the NHS is our national health service over here in the UK. So that's what we all pay into. And it's a beloved system here and something that we're still holding on to with as best as we can without everything going privatized. But how does it compare working to the police, Paul?
Paul Gullon-Scott (26:15.81)
Well, I'll go back to something that you were talking about earlier and you mentioned stigma, stigma around, you know, help seeking and mental health within policing. It still exists. It's always existed. And there's a lot of research out there to, you know, to support me sitting here saying it's there, it exists. It prevents people from asking for help. And just like you, you know, I never did.
not until it was too late and I was forced to get help. But I remember my first day in the NHS and I remember it vividly. So there I am fresh out of the box as a newly qualified higher assistant psychologist and off I go with one of the qualifieds to ward rounds.
And something occurred on the wardrobe. I can't really go into details of what that was, but something occurred during this wardrobe. And on the way back to the office, he actually put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks. And he said, are you OK?
Paul Gullon-Scott (27:25.55)
And I genuinely looked at him in disbelief. I thought he was winding me up. I thought it was a joke. And I looked at him for a few seconds and he said, are you okay? And I went, I said, I looked at him and went, you've got no idea where I've just come from, have you? And he went, no. So I explained. And he went, right, you'll be okay then.
But it was that just that one instance of someone saying, are you OK? Do you need to talk about this? Which never happened. The difference between the two environments is massive. Absolutely massive.
Adam Firman (28:16.767)
And is that?
What I have tried to promote since I've left is the ability to talk about it. I think the talking is what, if you try and bottle these issues up, they're not going away. And I think it was explained to me, it's like a sponge that's holding a drip. Eventually that sponge will go. It just will not be able to contain any more drips.
Paul Gullon-Scott (28:34.861)
No, no,
Paul Gullon-Scott (28:48.866)
I think one of the best analogies I've ever heard was it's like the driven tap, right? So you've got your tap, it's constantly driven. And, you know, as you, as your journey progresses through digital forensics, the tap starts to open a bit wider, the plug goes in and it's that sink starts to fill up. Eventually it overflows and it destroys everything around you.
and that's how the stressors work. You don't necessarily see them coming. They're very clever, they sneak up on you and before you know it you're overtaken by them and you don't see it. Those around you see it and they try to tell you but because that water is overflowing and...
you're flailing around inside of it you can't see anything you can't hear anything and nobody can get to you
Adam Firman (29:49.961)
And you do become cynical working in this space. My son's too young to have a phone and I think I'll say that when he's 20 as well, to be honest. it's... I have parents ask me from their school, my older son's now playing roadblocks and inside me is screaming, know, get them off that platform because of how much I was exposed to it. it's about talking and education and...
Children are going to have screens. There's nothing we can do about that to stop it. But in my opinion, it should be supervised and you know, there's lots of different things in place, but I just, it has made me cynical. It's made me cynical to a digital world and because of the horrific lies and deception and just the worst parts of human.
Paul Gullon-Scott (30:23.135)
No.
Paul Gullon-Scott (30:44.16)
It's so, so dangerous for children on the internet these days because the internet has given accessibility to directly to the children by individuals who have an interest in in corrupting those children, shall we say. And it's it's almost as if those people are walking through your front door and are sitting down talking to your children.
because of the types of platforms that kids have access to these days.
Adam Firman (31:18.519)
I saw a conversation on LinkedIn the other day and it was by a lady who I've had on this podcast that Jane Hoey and her daughter was abused and she now runs a charity sort of about educating parents and it used an analogy of would you let your child walk through a train station at midnight alone? And one of the responses was
I would rather let my child walk through a train station alone at midnight than I would let them go on the internet alone because I know that there would probably be one decent person who would ask if that child was okay. And I just thought that really sums up how dangerous the internet can be. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (32:02.026)
It can, it can. The accessibility it gives to people outside is unparalleled, you know? I mean, you wouldn't sit there and watch your... Imagine you're sitting on the beach. Nice sunny day, you're sitting there, you've got your young child sitting next to you. Would you let a complete stranger come up and talk to that child? No, you wouldn't. Of course you wouldn't. So why is it being allowed to happen inside your own home?
Adam Firman (32:24.919)
course you wouldn't.
Adam Firman (32:31.723)
Yeah. And that's the scary part because it is, and I understand why parents do it. It's the ease and of a child on a screen is not asking the parent questions and you know, while a parent gets on with their busy daily life, but your exact scenario that you just described, no parent would allow that to happen. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (32:52.494)
Absolutely not, Yet, you're almost inviting it in if you're allowing your child unsupervised access to, you know, a tablet, a phone, a computer, whatever it may be.
Adam Firman (33:04.747)
Yeah. And if we haven't put people off joining, because the career is very hard, but it, but it's also very rewarding. It is one of the most rewarding. but for those considering a career in this industry, what piece of advice from, from your background for mental health and wellbeing, what advice would you give them before they consider a move into this industry?
Paul Gullon-Scott (33:11.15)
you
It is. It absolutely is.
Paul Gullon-Scott (33:33.196)
I think the main piece of advice I would give any DFI moving into this as a career path is it doesn't matter who your potential employer is. Ask in depth what mental health support they offer. And you know at what level, how qualified the practitioners are within the mental health provision.
to make sure that you have the correct support and you have accessibility to that support whenever you decide you need it. Fingers crossed you may never and you know genuinely from my heart I hope you never have to access it but if you do you need to know that the support that's there is the correct support and
will support you at your time of need, whenever that is, 24 hours a day.
Adam Firman (34:36.311)
It's no different to taking out an insurance policy. Nobody wants to ever use their insurance policy, but you'd rather have the peace of mind that's there.
Paul Gullon-Scott (34:44.758)
Yes, absolutely.
Adam Firman (34:48.022)
and
And that's a very good point around asking for what provisions are in place. I saw a job posted on LinkedIn's advertiser today, but I saw a job posted on there earlier and it was for a Diff digital forensic investigator. And one of the pluses that it was advertised as is that you wouldn't be exposed to horrible content. Now, I also just spoke about the fact that a fraud affected me. So
I thought that was quite naive to put that in the advert because what one person's pain point is, yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (35:27.246)
perception. Yeah, yeah. And you're right, because I speak to many DFI's around the country here in the UK and something that quite often crops up is the text messages that go between. Offenders who are interested in kids. And the graphic detail. That they talk to each other in. Quite often affects them.
in a much stronger way than the imagery that they're exposed to. So it's very subjective. know, we cannot sit here and say images are going to bother you more than text messages. We don't know that.
Adam Firman (36:14.817)
Yeah, yeah, and also the kind of work, you can't sit there and say that a child abuse case is going to not affect you, but a fraud will or vice versa. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (36:27.352)
Correct. mean, you you talk about the traffic cop earlier, you know, they might handle, although I would find it very hard to believe, know, they might handle a fatal better than they might handle delivering a death informed message, for example. I mean, I don't believe that for a second. You know, there's got to be a life expectancy to that as well.
Adam Firman (36:51.573)
Yeah.
Adam Firman (36:55.265)
Yeah.
So I work for a tool provider. So we make software that extracts and analyzes data from phones. the company I work for are doing their part by involving Cade and Project Vic and other measures in place. And I know that other vendors are doing similar. Is there more from your background working in a forensic lab? Is there more that you think vendors should be doing?
Paul Gullon-Scott (37:24.91)
I think the more vendors can do to protect the DFI's the better. I'm certainly aware of one software manufacturer who actually monitors the types of number of cases that DFI's do. So from the back office of that software, for example, a manager or supervisor can see say how many
indecent image cases a DFI has done. And that might send an alarm to the supervisor to say, right, OK, this guy's done. It is. It's very, very good. This guy's done, you know, a large number of these cases. I think we should give him a break and move him on to, you know, a different type of crime. And, you know, so investment in in protective measures, I think.
Adam Firman (38:04.567)
That's really good, yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (38:24.244)
It don't get me wrong software engineers, sorry, software companies are doing a great job. They are looking at this. I know that. But I don't think you can underestimate the value of that. And the more they can do to protect the DFI whilst the grading, the better.
Adam Firman (38:43.019)
Yeah. Well, one thing that we introduced is because of, we spoke about earlier, the backlogs that are getting into forensic labs is a lot of the work is being pushed back out to everyday police officers to walk up to a terminal, extract a phone. But we all know that a phone that you don't expect child abuse imagery to be on can happen. So we've put measures in place where
during the extraction of the data, hash checks are taken place. And if a hash is detected, the person doing that extraction would then get a warning to say, submit this to your DFU. So there's little preventative measures in place, but that's only being used if the police force is engaged with us to implement that technology.
Paul Gullon-Scott (39:35.0)
Yeah, yeah. I can't, find it, I would find it fantastic that a police force wouldn't engage with you to have that as part of the software. I mean, that is a really good preventative measure to stop, you know, those who aren't trained to grade and deal with that material. Because there is a national, as you'll be aware, there is a national training program, which you must do to qualify to then become.
capable of grading. So I can't, I find it quite fantastic brute force not to put that in place to protect the officers who haven't had that training.
Adam Firman (40:18.719)
Yeah. And this is where should we let 43 different agencies work their own way or should there be a national or global sort of guidelines for how organizations deal with this? Because I think there should be for wellbeing and sort of mental health of people working in this space.
Paul Gullon-Scott (40:41.578)
I completely agree. Again, it's a conversation I was having with another party this afternoon. There are many, many guidelines out there to which have been brought in to try and protect the well-being and welfare, not just of DFI's, but policing in general. And some of the guidelines that are brought in are really, really good, but.
Because the guidelines and then not set as a standard operating procedure. Nine out of 10 times are not followed. Because they don't have to be.
Adam Firman (41:17.973)
And did, forgive me, shouldn't, did you manage to escape before 17025 came into your lab?
Paul Gullon-Scott (41:24.483)
Sadly not.
Adam Firman (41:25.943)
But you're going to be aware of how much money that has cost. So as a nation we're prepared to implement and take the burden of that cost for standards but we're not prepared to do it for an officer safety.
Paul Gullon-Scott (41:31.872)
vast amount of money.
Paul Gullon-Scott (41:46.614)
And this brings me back to one of my main arguments, which I always, always bang on about. It takes thousands of pounds and years to get to a really good standard in digital forensics. So forces, whether it be, you know, police forces or whether it be a private company, they will spend sometimes tens of thousands of pounds training individuals to become
highly qualified, highly competent in the job they're Yet don't offer the correct support to look after the mental health. So, you know, after a few years, you know, maybe five years, maybe 10 years, however long, but ultimately the DFI will become susceptible and leave. And then they have to do that.
all over again so they're spending tens and tens and tens of thousands of pounds on training and they are but it isn't just the the cost it's the loss of that skill that ability that knowledge
Adam Firman (42:42.475)
never again.
Yeah. Yeah.
Adam Firman (42:55.735)
And going back to how you spoke about the child on the beach speaking to a stranger, I liken it to this, that if you had a police officer going out to work in the town centre or to go to a shopping district or wherever in the globe, you'd equip that police officer with a stab vest, with a bulletproof vest, which costs money. You'd equip them with a radio so they could communicate. So the kit deployment is going to cost you money that you're going to invest in for that officer's safety.
Paul Gullon-Scott (43:14.646)
of close view.
Paul Gullon-Scott (43:25.41)
Yeah.
Adam Firman (43:25.665)
But mental health is unseen. And that's the problem.
Paul Gullon-Scott (43:27.746)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Because it isn't seen and it often isn't dealt with until, say this is the other thing. When issues do arise, it's too late. That cop, that DFI, once they become susceptible, it's a lot harder to bring that person back to full strength. From a mental health perspective, of course.
Adam Firman (43:53.985)
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (43:58.4)
And that is quite often, well, it is nine out of 10 times the way the provision of mental health is currently supplied, certainly here in the UK. It is very much a reactive service as opposed to a proactive service. Now, this is an argument of mine. I'm going to do it, but I am doing some work around this. In my opinion.
If you offer the proactive service, so say, for example, on a monthly basis, you offered a safe space where a qualified psychological practitioner, psychologist, psychiatrist could come in and give some psycho education around the stresses that the FI's or the wider police community could become susceptible to. So if they could teach them what the stressors look like.
what the signs and symptoms are, how they affect you physically, because they do have physical effects as well as mental health effects. So how they affect you physically, how they affect you mentally. It would better equip those in the police and world to to then recognise those signs and symptoms early and seek help for them, which if it's done at a very, very early stage, the recovery time is a lot shorter.
And it also means that you as an individual can recognise those signs and symptoms in others, in your colleagues. Because as I said earlier, if you are becoming susceptible to them, you don't necessarily see that in yourself. So if you've got a colleague who looks at you and thinks, yeah, there's something off here, I'm going to go to my supervisor and say, look, I think John over here needs a little bit of help. Then
it gets that intervention in at the earliest possible time and reduces the time it takes to to sort of become well again, if you like.
Adam Firman (46:05.387)
Yeah, yeah, before it is at the point of no return, which I know from speaking to you before we recorded that we've both got ex colleagues who unfortunately it was the point of no return.
Paul Gullon-Scott (46:09.803)
Exactly.
Paul Gullon-Scott (46:19.156)
It was, I mean, I'm very open about this. At the point that I left Pilly's son, it had got to the point of no return for me. And I knew it. I walked into my house one day, I looked at my wife and I said, I'm I'm broken. I can't do this anymore.
She gave me a big hug and I spent the next 13, 14 months in weekly intensive counselling and I never went back to police. That was me done.
Adam Firman (46:58.081)
Yeah. And like you just so articulately put is that if the investment had been put into place for better care, better prevention, you may still be assisting that police force with the skill set that you'd got all the years of experience and yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (47:14.294)
Yeah, yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (47:19.776)
Yeah, I mean, I'll be lying if I sat here and said I didn't miss it. I do. You know, I love the job. I love the sense of satisfaction when you safeguard a child. It is. I can't put that into words how that makes you feel knowing that you've protected that child and you've removed them from a very dangerous situation.
Paul Gullon-Scott (47:48.424)
Logically, I know I can never go back to that.
Adam Firman (47:52.715)
Yeah. So if we've got any supervisors of forensic labs listening to this podcast, what advice would you give them Paul to safeguard their staff?
Paul Gullon-Scott (48:06.228)
If I'm talking directly to supervisors or managers or companies, for example, what I would say is please look at tailored trauma and for mental health services and not just one size fits all generic support. Look at the stresses that your DFIs or you know, your wider police and colleagues can become susceptible to and tailor that support around the needs that they could.
potentially become susceptible to. Peer support platforms, there is an awful lot of research out there which support the introduction of peer support platforms so it could be as simple as everybody down tools on a Friday for an hour, make a cup of tea, let's go into the room and sit and have a chat. It's genuinely that simple.
Leadership training, I think that is an absolute must when it comes to mental health. So you've got training courses such as mental health first aid, first aiders. I think all supervisors and all managers and some colleagues within the, you know, within the each unit could be trained in mental health first aid and absolutely regular wellbeing check-ins.
I was utterly flabbergasted at the beginning of this podcast when you told me that all mental health services were removed from your unit when you worked there. should, in this day and age, that just shouldn't be a thing. It really shouldn't. So at the very least, biannual check-ins with a qualified clinician.
Who's able to properly assess? Excuse me. The monitoring of workloads as well. Workloads are a big issue because you quite often bounce from one traumatic job to another traumatic job. Think about giving your DFIs a break. Don't constantly have them looking at heroin imagery. Give them a break.
Paul Gullon-Scott (50:36.48)
you know, as strange as it sounds, and I know you'll understand this, you know, even going from a CSA job, child sexual abuse job to a murder investigation is a break.
Adam Firman (50:50.805)
Yeah, yeah, it is something different.
Paul Gullon-Scott (50:54.734)
It is, it's something different. It's. It's difficult to explain if you've never done that job. And you could give job rotation. Some thought as well. So obviously there's different jobs within a digital forensics unit, not just hands on at the desk with a device. These are the rules that could be done, so you know, give some give some thought to job rotation as well.
Adam Firman (51:24.387)
some really good points. And my final question is the $64 million question. And if you could make one change that could be implemented globally for those working in digital forensics, what would that one change be?
Paul Gullon-Scott (51:38.05)
For me, that will be changing the way mental health services are actually currently provided. I think the reactive approach which is currently taken is not sustainable. I think a more proactive approach, sorry, a more proactive approach would make the whole police and family more resilient and stronger and give them a
greater understanding of what they might become susceptible to. At least if they're aware of it, then they're able to understand if they do start to become unwell and they can act on that sooner. So for me, it will be change from a reactive approach to a proactive approach.
Adam Firman (52:29.463)
No, it's really valid points. like I said to you during this, I'd still appreciate it. And I still see that sergeant who gave me those words of advice before I joined that he almost prepared me because when I first was offered that job, was like, I've got into the gold headquarters of locked doors and nobody knows what happens behind those doors, but it's magic.
He really brought me back down to earth and sort of made me think, is this something that I want to do? So now some really good points and I'm going to link out in the show notes to the articles that you've done on Forensic Focus. Because I should have referred to them in my post because they've been really, really insightful. And you released one last week.
Paul Gullon-Scott (53:20.268)
I did. I've got well, I've got another one in the pipeline, but hosted on forensic focus platform are now several articles that I've I've been lucky enough. I was approached by forensic focus about probably eight, nine months ago now. And I've worked very closely with them since then, and they are really flying the flag.
for mental health and well-being and digital forensics. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to work with them.
Adam Firman (53:53.473)
Yeah, no, it's really good. And so I come from a vendor background and we offer training into how to use our tool. And there's a lot of companies out there who offer vendor neutral training, how to use tools, how to use methods. None of them offer any sort of sessions or guidance on mental health.
Paul Gullon-Scott (54:01.582)
you
Paul Gullon-Scott (54:20.442)
And, know, that's the same throughout the digital forensics world, whether it be public or private. I don't know of anyone yet who, you know, sits their team down and said, let's talk about this. Let's talk about these issues.
Adam Firman (54:39.415)
But I think back and you probably followed a similar path of when you first join in the police, you have to go to these national cram fields and sort of core skills in data recovery. There was nothing in there to look after my wellbeing, No.
Paul Gullon-Scott (54:52.174)
Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (54:56.438)
No, isn't. No, no. You know, we're from the same, you and I are from the same school. You get sent off, you do your courses in various different, I was going to say some software company sort of. So, you know, you get sent off on your end case courses, your celebrate courses, your black light courses, et cetera. But where's the course about mental health?
Adam Firman (55:11.772)
No, no, you can name this.
Adam Firman (55:25.313)
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Gullon-Scott (55:25.89)
Where is it? It still isn't there. know, we're like decades on now.
Adam Firman (55:31.933)
Yeah, and I can even forgive the vendors, but the main courses that have been that people now being sent to it by the College of Policing. And there is nothing in those courses. And so if anybody is listening and they want to get in touch with Paul, then just follow the show notes.
Paul Gullon-Scott (55:42.21)
Yeah. No.
Paul Gullon-Scott (55:52.59)
I would be very happy to develop that with them.
Adam Firman (55:56.663)
Yeah, but now a huge thank you Paul for joining us. I'm sure our listeners will have found your journey and experience extremely insightful. I'll like I said, I'll make sure I post all of the links to the forensic focus. I'll also add your LinkedIn profile so people can get in touch with you if they want to find out about the work you're doing or how they can implement anything into their labs. But thank you very much for joining us on the show. And we may have something in the pipeline that's going to be coming out soon.
Paul Gullon-Scott (56:12.459)
Excellent.
Adam Firman (56:24.843)
But no, thank you very much Paul for giving up your time.
Paul Gullon-Scott (56:24.896)
Indeed. My pleasure, Adam. Thanks for having me.