Police officer denies lying over Rayney evidence

A WA Police officer has denied lying and "making up evidence" on the stand at Lloyd Rayney's murder trial after today being recalled to clarify her evidence.

Sergeant Natasha Rogers told the court she had “incorrectly identified" a yellow-topped forensic evidence jar when giving evidence last week.

The court heard today Sgt Rogers had confused a jar used to hold a liquidambar seed pod found in Corryn Rayney's body bag with one used to hold hair samples taken from Mrs Rayney.

Police handling of forensic evidence has emerged as a key issue in Mr Rayney's trial, with his defence team attacking the way evidence - particularly the seed pods found in her hair and body bag - was tagged and handled.

Under cross-examination Mr Rayney's lawyer David Edwardson suggested Sgt Rogers had made up evidence to explain the lack of photographs of the seed pod in situ.

"Can I suggest to you that you were lying on the last occasion... you were deliberately making up evidence," Mr Edwardson said.

"You changed your evidence today did you not as a consequence of those exhibits being brought to your attention (after giving evidence last week)."

Sgt Rogers denied Mr Edwardson's claims.

Sgt Rogers told the court she examined Mrs Rayney’s body bag in December 2007 and its content after a contact lens was found in the back of Mrs Rayney’s car. That search turned up the third liquidambar seed pod, similar to those that had already been collected from Mrs Rayney's hair during her post-mortem examination in August.

Mr Edwardson suggested Sgt Rogers' evidence of having searched Mrs Rayney’s body bag to try and find a missing contact lens was “a contrived story”, which she denied.

“No that’s what I believe I did,” she said.