Police who attended the Claremont serial killings crime scenes continue to be questioned in painstaking detail about how they handled or came close to evidence, with the possibility of contamination considered a "live issue" by the defence.
Ex-Telstra technician Bradley Robert Edwards, 51, has been on trial in the West Australian Supreme Court since late last year, accused of murdering Sarah Spiers, 18, Jane Rimmer, 23, and Ciara Glennon, 27, in 1996 and 1997.
Sergeant Gary Hyde testified on Wednesday, estimating the closest he got to Ms Glennon's body, which was found in scrub in Eglinton 19 days after she was last seen, was 1.5 metres.
Sgt Hyde, who took aerial photographs and notes at the site, said he was wearing light blue Yakka overalls.
At the time, Telstra workers wore navy pants made by Yakka, the court has previously heard.
The prosecution alleges fibres from such garments were found on Ms Glennon, Ms Rimmer and a 17-year-old girl Edwards has admitted raping in Karrakatta Cemetery in 1995.
Sgt Hyde said he did not wear gloves but would have "definitely" if he had touched the body.
He said he "would have had no reason" to touch Ms Glennon's body at her post mortem, where he again took photographs and wore "standard protective wear" for mortuaries including a white reverse apron.
Other current and former police were questioned in detail on Tuesday about the recovery of Ms Rimmer's naked body from bushland in Wellard 55 days after she vanished and the two post mortems that followed.
Former sergeant Barry Mott testified DNA science was "very much in its infancy" in the 1990s and police did not consider they could potentially contaminate a crime scene - even without touching anything.
But Robert Kays, a former detective for the Macro Taskforce, which probed the killings and became Australia's biggest police investigation, said officers followed Locard's exchange principle that every time someone made contact with another person or object, physical material was exchanged.
Sgt Hyde was also asked about a critical hair sample he collected from a pathology lab that had been initialled by Laurance Webb, a former senior forensic biologist who was sacked from PathWest in 2016 for breaching testing protocols.
A subsequent investigation found 11 anomalies in tests but the errors were not deemed sufficient to cast doubt on any criminal convictions.
Australian Associated Press
