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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 96-iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
Wednesday 26 January 2005 MR DAVID COLEMAN, MR GARY PUGH, MR BARRY TAYLOR and MR CLIVE WOLFENDALE PROFESSOR SIR ALEC JEFFREYS, PROFESSOR STEVE HASWELL, PROFESSOR TONY SAMMES and PROFESSOR SUE BLACK Evidence heard in Public Questions 290 - 426
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday 26 January 2005 Members present Dr Ian Gibson, in the Chair Dr Evan Harris Dr Brian Iddon Mr Robert Key Dr Desmond Turner ________________
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr David Coleman, Chief Constable, Derbyshire Constabulary, Mr Clive Wolfendale, Deputy Chief Constable, North Wales Police, Mr Barry Taylor, Deputy Chief Constable, Dyfed Powys Police and Mr Gary Pugh, Forensic Science Services, Metropolitan Police Service, examined. Q290 Chairman: Can I thank you very much indeed for coming to help us with forensic science. I promise not to mention binge drinking or twenty-four hour boozing, but you are very welcome to help us in this inquiry we are doing into forensic science which is becoming very interesting. The new Home Office minister has already said that he is not going to privatise it in the near future, so who knows? We are on the edge of trying to get some help and support, and some of the issues we are raising do seem to be an open door anyway. Thank you for bringing your expertise and professionalism to it. I do not know how you want to answer us; one spokesperson would great but certainly I want everybody to indicate if they would like to add something or amplify or whatever. Let me start off by asking you what you think are the best qualifications or educational background for scene of crime officers and other police forensic staff. Do you need a double first from Cambridge or Oxford, or is that too highly qualified? Or do you need no education at all? Where do we pitch it at? What do you think is best for the kind of person you are looking for? Mr Coleman: Perhaps I will just give a few brief remarks there and then I will ask Clive Wolfendale who specialises in training to say more. Our discussions have been around the breadth of roles and the difference between a need to have very academic, intelligent kind of qualifications and the ability to show practical competence in dealing with what are some very basic processes at the basic front end of forensic science in terms of scene searching and recovery of evidence. They are indeed extremely basic processes which a normally competent individual with a moderate level of education and attainment can actually be quite successful in. However, we then move right across the spectrum to the interpretation of arena where particular scientific processes have to be undertaken. Of course, the further one moves across the spectrum the better qualifications one requires. Q291 Chairman: If you are looking for somebody tomorrow - obviously it could be a man or a woman of any ethnic background and so on, there are no issues like that that we are going to raise with you because I assume that you handle that - what would you look for? What would they have in their education and qualifications that would make you throw the paper in the bin? Mr Wolfendale: Perhaps we can just put some context around this. Early in my career I had the experience of directly managing about 100 scene examiners in the Greater Manchester Force and my observations are these. Most of the nuts and bolts forensic work - scene recovery work - currently undertaken in England and Wales is performed by volume crime scene examiners. Their job training consists of a three week course currently undertaken at our training centre in Durham, after which most of those individuals are perfectly competent to deliver a satisfactory service. Most of our results in volume crime and detecting vehicle crime come from those individuals. That is the sum total of their job bespoke training. The people that we find who are best equipped to take advantage of that training and deliver a good service are simply individuals who can read, who can count, who have good interpersonal skills - because they are dealing day in day out with members of the public in distressing circumstances - and who have an inquiring mind. Q292 Chairman: What about the basic science that they know, for example? Mr Wolfendale: Science qualifications for those individuals are not, in my view, necessary in any way. Q293 Chairman: So somebody could come from a literature degree, for example. Mr Wolfendale: Yes, and many do. Many take a career switch perhaps at the age of 30 from a completely unrelated discipline and work very successfully in the field. The ability to write a good report, to be able to deal with some of the numerical challenges associated with the job but also to communicate with the complainant is a fundamental requirement of the discipline. A little while ago in my own force - which is now in north Wales - we had a selection process. There were about 50 applicants for some volume crime scene examiner jobs. About half the individuals coming forward had BSc forensic science and for the three posts on offer we did not take any of them. Our own internal selection processes weeded them out. We found they were simply not measuring up to the skills we were looking for. Q294 Chairman: Coming to you having done a forensic science course, would you be suspicious of that, given what you have said about how you can take a native born person, as it were, and turn them into a good practitioner. Mr Wolfendale: That is a view shared by both the Police Service and the forensic science providers who are, of course, looking for people with a definite scientific bent and some knowledge. As far as we are concerned we cannot tar everybody with the same brush and we take each person on their merits. However, the point is this, we find the courses that are on offer - and I speak here from the police perspective and from the SEMTA prospective where I chair the forensic science group - are largely neither vocationally relevant nor academically rigourous. Q295 Chairman: So you are laughing at them, are you? Mr Wolfendale: Occasionally, yes. Q296 Chairman: It is a university wheeze to get more students in because of television programmes, do you think? Mr Wolfendale: That is unquestionably the case. There are now probably over 300 combination BSc forensic science courses and combinations available in about 50 institutions. Many of those have been established unashamedly to attract numbers of students to university. Q297 Chairman: If you had a child who wanted to be a forensic scientist what would you advise them to do, if they wanted to go to university? Mr Wolfendale: I would get them to the best university possible to study chemistry. Q298 Chairman: If you could find a department where there is chemistry any more. That is a very interesting point you make. Mr Pugh: My background is as a forensic scientist and I think there is a spectrum of ability required both within forensic science laboratories and within the Police Service. For me I think the issue in terms of how we look at potential applicants, we are looking for people who have very practical skills. We do not need boffins certainly within the Police Service, if I can use that expression. We are looking for people who have an inquiring mind and who also have a basic academic ability; we do not necessarily look for a degree but nowadays most of our applicants come with a degree. Within the Met the important thing for us is really about competence and we need people who can work at a crime scene on their own, can deal with victims of crime but also can have the technical ability to recover evidence. I think there is an increasing demand in terms of technical knowledge. Going on from that, I would add to Clive's point as well, certainly moving from the volume crime and certainly in London the volume of serious crime, we need staff as well with interpretive skills. They need to be able to understand what has happened at the crime scene. They need to be able to interpret events effectively. Q299 Chairman: The same people who do it? Mr Pugh: Yes. Q300 Chairman: You look to them to interpret the evidence and give you a "could be this, could be that" sort of thing. Mr Pugh: I think we are looking for them to interpret the events at the crime scene to gain an understanding of how the crime was committed, to inform the decision making within the inquiry. Q301 Chairman: Is it successful? Mr Pugh: Yes. Q302 Chairman: It really works well? Mr Pugh: Yes. Q303 Chairman: It is a new lively enterprise you think. Mr Pugh: I do not think it is new; I think it is an innate skill that has always been there. What we have tried to do is encourage that interpreting contribution, particularly within homicide, supported by forensic scientists and other specialists where required. Q304 Dr Turner: At the same time as university chemistry departments are closing students who might have gone there in the past are being seduced into glamorous looking forensic science courses - maybe they think they are going to play the Amanda Burton role or something - but these courses are in fact of little value in any practical terms. You are not the only witnesses we have had suggesting that. Do you feel this is a matter of great concern because it is in fact undermining your own potential recruiting process and that of the real Forensic Science Service? If you agree with that proposition, are you doing anything to feed back to the universities that they are offering a very poor false product? Mr Wolfendale: We are definitely doing just that on behalf of the Police Service and on behalf of SEMTA (the sector skills council with responsibility for this area). You may be familiar with this document which is the Implications for Higher Education which was published about three months ago now and which explores just that topic. Following on that I have personally taken interviews to major newspapers and our director has spoken to Radio Four about this very problem. Can I make a point so far as the Police Service is concerned on this? As well as a waste in young people's time and a waste of parents' money, as well as the degradation of science within higher education, there has been a tendency in the last ten years for some of these institutions to begin to suborn police forces in their locality and our training establishment to trying to get their hooks into us as some sort of testimony or accreditation of their competence and relevance. This, in itself, has been injurious because it has meant an overhead on forces in terms of the training that they have begun to undertake without full knowledge of the consequences. Again it has led to training which is irrelevant and not fit for purpose. There is an additional danger there but it is one which we are now alive to and most forces are beginning to resist. My final point on this is, as a matter of interest, of the over 300 courses now available two-thirds require no A'level science qualification at all to get on them. I think that tells its own story. Q305 Chairman: So you are really sceptical; you think it is just way to get students into the university. Mr Wolfendale: I think it is a savage waste of young people's time and parent's money. Dr Turner: And tax payer's money. Q306 Dr Iddon: As a former academic teaching chemistry and one who has planted quite a number of my former students into the Forensic Science Service I am very pleased to hear what you said about chemistry. Can you tell the Committee, for the benefit of other members who may not know, what is special about chemistry graduates in the Forensic Science Service? Mr Pugh: I am a chemist myself and I think chemistry - certainly from my experience going into the Forensic Science Service - gives me a base of knowledge around the main processes and techniques that forensic science uses. Nowadays perhaps there is more bias towards bio-chemistry with DNA profiling, but I think the analytical sciences - which is my particular specialism - are under-utilised and I think that having a good sound chemistry base allows you to understand the analytical techniques that are used to compare fibres, glass, paint and so on. Chairman: I think I have got the message on that one, thank you very much. Q307 Dr Turner: There is, of course, an enormous range of scientific forensic techniques available now to police officers. Are you satisfied with the level of awareness of non-scientific staff and investigating officers in the police? Are you happy that the police themselves are in a position to make the best use of the forensic support? Mr Coleman: I think in broad terms the answer to that would have to be "no". I think we can never really have the level of awareness that we would ideally like - which is near a hundred per cent awareness in every one of our operational staff - for a number of reasons, not least of which is because we have people with such a broad range of experience out on the front line from the first day probationary constable to the hard-bitten thirty year officer who has been there, seen it and done it. It is a constant process really of trying to ensure not only that that basic long-term awareness is there, but when new techniques arise, new abilities to seek evidence in different ways, that we are able to disseminate that evidence properly to staff. Working as we do in an organisation which is multi-site 24/7 it is very, very difficult to get large groups of people together to give them the information and also to take them from day to day duties for any sort of training. It is a battle to raise that awareness. There is so much other information that police officers need to receive in addition to forensic awareness that there is a tendency for information overload and therefore perhaps some of the key messages do not get through. Q308 Dr Turner: Obviously you cannot expect every plod to be completely aware of all that is going on in forensic science, but equally any investigative team must have access - one would think - to somebody with that knowledge, not necessarily to know how to do it, but to know what is there and how to use it. What steps do police forces take and does ACPO make any recommendations to provide this sort of forensic liaison so that any investigating officer knows who to ask in his force at a moment's notice if there is anything that can help him? Mr Coleman: I think that would be a feature of every force, that every force would have its scientific support department or whatever that particular force might call the department. Within that department would be a range of people with particular types of expertise from scene managers to fingerprint experts to people with expertise in DNA. I would be very surprised if any force did not have the facility for officers attending a crime scene to get first-hand advice from somebody of that nature. Q309 Dr Turner: There is still obviously a need for, say, a detective sergeant to know that he needs to ask these questions so there is a minimum level of awareness which is obviously needed at middle to senior police ranks. Mr Wolfendale: That is the key. Q310 Dr Turner: What steps do you take to ensure that that training is given? Mr Wolfendale: Once again I start by suggesting to you something which I always preface any conversation of this kind. About 30 per cent of primary volume crime detections in my own force arise from forensic science of one type or another: DNA, fingerprints, footwear principally. I suspect that is the same in most forces. That is how important it is in terms of the overall crime fighting effort. The steps we have taken are broadly speaking these. About ten years ago the Police Service, together with the Forensic Science Service, developed a package called Think Forensic which was a series of fact sheets and a video which gave every officer a basic understanding of techniques in dealing with volume crime. That was updated about two years ago principally by the Hampshire police and it is undertaking a full revision and bringing it up-to-date with new techniques and that will be produced in April 2005 (in about three months' time). In the last two years we have also revised the probationary training arrangements in terms of the information given to officers in their basic training so that they have an understanding of the basics before they undertake patrols and start investigating crime. On top of that, in terms of the access to advice which you were specifically alluding to, that advice can be gained through any internal force scientific department. There are broadly speaking four layers of expertise within most departments starting at the bottom with the volume scene examiner doing essentially vehicle crime; then a fully-fledged scene examiner doing a broad range of violence, burglary, robbery; then there would be a scene manager who would take responsibility for managing a team perhaps at the scene of a very serious assault or a murder; on top of that there is a scientific support co-ordinator who is a very skilled and experienced individual who will be able to manage multiple scenes and bring various disciplines together and co-ordinate the entire scientific input. Those ranges of advice and expertise are available now in just about every force. This model has been developed under the auspices of the National Training Centre for Scientific Support which is at Durham and is broadly established and accepted force-wide. On top of that the Forensic Science Service, through the DNA expansion funding, has offered additional training throughout the country. Unfortunately I agree with David Coleman that the take-up for that was disappointing from my point of view but, as an enthusiast, you would not expect me to say anything else. That is an indication, I think, that the spread of expertise and interest is not as wide as we would want it to be. Q311 Dr Turner: Is there a cost consideration in forces taking up training provision from the FSS? Do you think this could be adversely affected by commercialisation of the FSS either to its projected form of the GovCo or even it were finally privatised? Mr Coleman: The current round of training that is being offered by the FSS has been funded through the DNA Expansion Programme so there is no cost to forces. However, one can imagine in a future situation when the FSS status changes that they will certainly not be wanting to carry out those sorts of activities for free. Unless that funding continues from a government source - which the FSS will presumably then have to be contracted to deliver - we look to move into a situation where I think forces will be paying for trainers. There are a number of forces who have their own forensic trainers, including my own until recently when the individual left. We found that to be extremely effective. Mr Pugh: The challenge in London in trying to reach 35,000 officers formal training is not really effective and we have to make more use of our own intranet and other means of doing that. We are trying to do that in London to try to get those basic levels of awareness. I think the key issues are around scene preservation and management and the need to make sure that officers do not compromise what comes later and all the good work that goes on. Also, in key groups of staff, particularly senior investigating officers in homicide and serious crime, we need to target groups to make sure they have the level of forensic awareness to make use of the tools. Q312 Mr Key: Are the numbers of scientific support staff rising or falling across the country? Mr Coleman: I would think they are probably stable at the moment. They have risen significantly in light of the funding that has been available from the DNA Expansion Programme and that is where we have managed to recruit increased numbers of forensic vehicle examiners, for example, who are the people who receive rather less training. They have been extremely effective, but with the budgetary settlement this year it would be my guess that there would be very few forces that will actually increase their scientific support staff and it may be that some of them are under great pressure to reduce staff. Q313 Mr Key: Are you saying they would have liked to have but they cannot afford to have because of the settlement? Mr Coleman: Most forces I think would, given the opportunity, take on extra scene examiners. I think there is a problem with that in that you have to look at the process holistically and if you are more successful in recovering evidence from scenes then, as a consequence, you will need more fingerprint examiners, you will need to spend more money on DNA analysis, for example, and if you have a chemical lab as well it may put pressure on that. In work we have been doing with the Police Standards Unit we have argued very strongly to look at the whole system holistically. Mr Wolfendale: I think the most authoritative study which is relevant to your question was undertaken about 18 months ago, the Occupational Mapping Study, by an independent consultant revealing that there are about 5000 people currently employed in police scientific support units - much the largest overall employer - and probably about 4500 people employed in the Forensic Science Service and other forensic science suppliers. That number I think marked the end of a huge expansion during the 1990s when departments upgraded with the advent of DNA and opportunities that afforded. As Mr Coleman said, the numbers have now broadly speaking stabilised. However, there are other disciplines here that begin to creep in and I refer particularly to digital technologies and computer examination which is becoming a huge requirement on forces in terms of investigating internet crime, e-crime and the rest of it. Those figures are still not particularly well understood but certainly every force to my knowledge is expanding its operation in that field. Q314 Mr Key: Is it possible to identify any forces across the UK where they are short of scientific staff? Mr Coleman: I am certainly not aware of any from the soundings I take. Q315 Mr Key: What impact would privatisation of FSS have on the numbers we have been talking about? Would you anticipate that it would be harder to retain as well as recruit or would it just not make any difference? Mr Coleman: I think that rather depends on how the salaries move. It is entirely possible that if competition arose between providers competition would also then arise for staff. It may well have the impact of pushing salary levels up which may well attract some of the staff currently employed by the Police Service to go and work for the forensic providers. But it is highly speculative at this stage I think. Q316 Mr Key: Are you saying that you would anticipate that if the private sector pays higher salaries then the Police Service will have to pay higher salaries so there would be fewer people in the Service? Mr Coleman: It is possible but we already have difficulties in some areas for instance fingerprint examiners where there is quite a bit of competition for fingerprint examiners when forces seek to recruit them. Many forces find themselves paying market supplements in order to retain their existing staff. Q317 Mr Key: Mr Pugh, I believe the Met has a problem with retention. Is that the case? Mr Pugh: Yes, in several ways. We are overwhelmed with applicants for many of the reasons we touched on earlier. It is really about retaining staff and offering them- not least because of the particular issues around working in London - a career development opportunity within the Met Police which we are seeking to do. Our staff - certainly our scene examiners in London - work on a 24/7 shift system and that has demands on them and they look for other careers. Interestingly they also move in to become police officers so even though there is a benefit to the Metropolitan Police I find there is a steady drift of staff who come into the Police Service as a scene examiner but they then see and understand the packages that are available for police officers and move in that direction. Dr Turner: My own police force is the Sussex Police so they border onto the Metropolitan area. They suffer a very severe retention problem because the Met keeps coming and poaching their officers because the Met can offer them more money and free travel. Does this sort of thing happen with forensic workers as well? Chairman: Are you asking them to stop it? Q318 Dr Turner: They have been asked to stop it. Mr Pugh: I do not think I could comment on the police officer issue. With regard to the forensic staff, we do not offer any particular packages. There is clearly a market for forensic staff and particularly experienced staff, whether it be fingerprint experts or scene examiners or crime scene managers. I think there is a movement between forces certainly in the south-east but there is not at the moment, if you like, a bidding war going on between them. Q319 Dr Turner: You do not actually go poaching? Mr Pugh: No. Q320 Dr Turner: Why is CRFP registration not compulsory? Mr Coleman: The ACPO position on CRFP registration is that we support it and we are very keen to ensure that people are independently accredited as being of the expertise they claim but the only way of making it compulsory for staff who are already in employment is to get them to agree to change their contract and that presents some significant difficulties. There are a number of forces now that are taking on new staff on the basis of a contract that includes a requirement to be CRFP registered and the signs are that it will not be too long before all police scientific staff are registered. Q321 Chairman: We have been told by several sources that there are great variations in gathering and using forensic data between different police forces. I guess that is probably true. Mr Coleman: Yes, it is. Q322 Chairman: Why is that? Is it because the Met is poaching all the best people? Mr Coleman: I would certainly not subscribe to that view. There are many reasons why that should be and that is something around the way the Police Service is structured into the 43 forces which have different financial backgrounds, they are at different stages of development, they have different kinds of leadership and leaders who have different interests and emphasis. Q323 Chairman: That is a bit worrying. That would mean that somebody has a greater chance of getting off in Kings Lynn, for example, than in Ipswich. Mr Coleman: It is possible but in a service that is delivering across the country with as many people as we have, it is inevitable that some people will be more skilled than others I guess at the bottom line. Q324 Chairman: That is not good enough, is it? Mr Coleman: No, it is not. Q325 Chairman: What are you doing to sort it out? Mr Coleman: One of the things we have been working very hard on in the Forensic Portfolio is to try to ensure that forces are all driving up standards. We have done a lot of work with the Police Standards Unit on process mapping. We have a simulation model now that actually simulates the whole of the forensic processes which can be taken to any force and it can be laid against their performance. That will enable them to diagnose where their performance needs to improve and what particular aspects of the process they need to sharpen up on or put more resources on and so on and so forth. Q326 Chairman: You said "we"; is there a person or two people whose job it is to drive it together and make sure there is unanimity across the country? Or do you just talk about it when you have a joint meeting? Mr Coleman: It is not either of those. Across the Forensic Portfolio - which includes the witnesses today and a number of other senior officers - there is a general drive to improve standards and raise the profile of forensic science and increase investment in forensic science. Q327 Chairman: Who is the best? If there were a league table who would be the best? Mr Coleman: I am sure you would not expect me to answer that, Chairman, and I am not going to. Q328 Chairman: Give me a clue. Is there a best and a worst? Mr Coleman: I would not care to say who is the best and who is the worst. There are some people who are good at some things and some people who are good at others and a few who are good at everything and I would certainly not choose to pick out colleagues. Q329 Chairman: Would you say that DNA analysis is better done in one place than another? Mr Coleman: I think there are some people who manage the process better than others. If you look at the DNA process for example there are a number of opportunities sometimes missed to collect DNA. Q330 Chairman: If you could tell me who was the worst, could I send my DNA to them? If I was picked up say at Riverside in Norwich on a Friday night with 25000 others and they insisted on taking DNA, have I the right to choose who that DNA gets sent to? Mr Coleman: No. Q331 Chairman: Does it have to be done locally? Mr Coleman: The DNA will be taken by the force which arrests you and the analysis will be done by the provider that that force normally uses. Q332 Chairman: That takes me to my next question. The provider might be different in different areas as well and there must be good providers and bad providers. How does a force make the decision? Mr Coleman: In terms of DNA then the custodian of the database sets the standards by which the DNA analysis has to be conducted and has a regime of quality control which ensures that all the providers analyse DNA to the same standard and the same quality. Q333 Chairman: Do you keep it in the family? Are you a family unit, as it were, in the police? Do you say that a certain provider is better than another? Mr Coleman: There are a variety of views on that. Forces who use a particular provider through choice would say that they feel that that provider is the best provider for them. That does not necessarily mean that the other providers are bad, but that force feels that that provider gives a better service. Q334 Chairman: If I was making that decision for a force, what criteria would I use to decide who was the best for my force? Mr Coleman: I think we are firmly in an era of best value now. Q335 Chairman: In money? Would it be the cheapest? Mr Coleman: No, best value is not about money it is about the relationship between turn-round times, quality of service and cost and I think that the cheapest is not necessarily the best. Mr Taylor: Picking up on that forces are driving up performance themselves through regimes such as using the Police Standards Unit who are monitoring force performance, HMIC recommendations who report such as Under the Microscope Refocused and so on. Coming back to the forensic providers, in some of the work I am doing at the moment in relation to procurement issues we need to articulate clearly the standards we expect forensic providers to perform to. That work is being undertaken at the moment. Standards are important in all of this but in terms of the evaluation of contracts, the evaluation is in important feature there in relation to standards, timeliness and other services that providers can and will offer to forces. Forces will articulate to forensic providers what their valuation criteria will be as it suits them because there is no one size fits all, depending on locality, geography and the nature of the crime or incidents that occur in that particular area. There may be different criteria that forces would want to assess. Q336 Chairman: Can you give me an example? Mr Taylor: My force is Dyfed Powys and is a huge geographic area. We are a very low crime area too. Geography is a difficulty for us and in terms of timeliness for collection of forensic exhibits that may be more of an issue for us than a more compact force where transportation is easier. Thankfully we do not have a gun crime problem in Dyfed Powys but other forces do have a substantial gun crime problem. Our evaluation criteria of particular types of services or products would take that into account. The evaluation criteria would very much be tailored to suit a locality and the policing need of that locality. Q337 Chairman: Do you have to bid for money depending on those decisions. You might want more money, for example. We are battered by the police as you well know in terms of budgets and so on, but I have never heard them ask for extra money for this kind of service. Mr Taylor: I think by and large money is nearly always made available for forensic budgets with police services. I am not sure that forces have fully understood the nature of their forensic spend at the moment. Some forces slightly under-spend their budget but most tend to over-spend and so perhaps the budget has not been set appropriately in the first instance. There is increasing reliance upon forensic evidence and there is a realisation across the board - and certainly at chief officer level - that we clearly need to take the best possible advantage of forensic science and when we re-assess our budgets throughout the year we would make that provision available to us and if necessary make further bids to the police authority to increase the budget for that particular service. Q338 Dr Iddon: There has been quite a lot of criticism in recent years of the Forensic Science Service itself. What difference do you think conversion of that service from its present operation to a GovCo would actually make? Will it be sufficient to ensure that the FSS is competitive in what is now after all a forensic science market? Mr Coleman: Firstly I think that some of that criticism has been unjustified over the years because if we examine what the FSS has achieved over the last five or six years for example in terms of automation and mass-production of DNA analysis then they have moved into a world leading position very rapidly as a result of pressure from the Police Service on turn-round times and costs. Amongst the problems there is a success story in some of the major areas of business they achieve. However, turn-round times have been a particular issue and from my perspective as the Forensic Portfolio Holder I have not had anything like the amount of complaints around turn-round times in the last two years that I had earlier in my tenure so it is my belief that that has been improved. To the question specifically, the difficulty that the FSS is under at the moment is that it works on very much the basis that it has always worked with the Police Service. It is on a very much non-contractual gentleman's agreement type of approach and it has therefore never felt the need to sharpen up its act commercially. It is restricted by rules on where it can obtain capital from for reinvestment and therefore it is operating in some facilities which, although I would not necessarily say they are anti-diluvian, they are fairly ancient and certainly need to be addressed. My feeling in moving it to GovCo and potentially later to the public/private partnership firstly it will get its commercial act together and it will become much sharper in its negotiations with forces in competition with other providers because if it does not it will very quickly start to lose business and we have already seen examples of where that will happen. Once it becomes more commercially aware and more competitive it will secure business and it will then be able to re-capitalise and invest in some more modern equipment and buildings and so on. I think that the benefits will be seen within three or four years. Mr Pugh: Just adding to David's point, clearly the focus is on the privatisation of the FSS or the move of the FSS in terms of its commercial development but in my experience certainly from working in the Met for the last four years the issue is about the commercial development of forensic science and within that the privatisation of the FSS. We have a market place and I think that certainly from where I sit we need to manage that and manage the risks, that there will be continuity of provision and that standards will be maintained. I think importantly - certainly in my role - the forensic science community have to deliver services that the police need to tackle crime. In my view you have to start from that end. Mr Wolfendale: The point I would like to make is that since agencyisation I think the Forensic Science Service has been living in a twilight world for ten years and in that position I think it has done extremely well in the face of having to try to find its way commercially but also being constrained by still being part of the Home Office. For me the big downside in that period for it and other suppliers has been that because investment has been limited R&D has been stifled and whilst we can point to DNA as being a huge success - and so it is - in other areas such as digital technologies and biometrics there have not been the developments which I think there might have been and which would now be benefiting crime investigation throughout Britain. Personally I look forward to some aspects of the new world where this might be freed up and we might see some very quick developments. What I see then is a rich opportunity for an expanding business both in this country and abroad. Q339 Chairman: How do you see the state of bio-metrics research at the minute with the ID cards and all this business? Where do you think it is at? Are we half way there to getting it accurate or what? Mr Wolfendale: I think about half way is where I would put it and there are some centres of excellence around the country where there is some first class work being done, but it is not being translated into a commercial product at the moment. Q340 Chairman: So you do not use it. Mr Wolfendale: No, we do not use it. Q341 Dr Iddon: You have argued for a regulator. Could you expand on that a little and tell the Committee who that might be and what powers they should have? Mr Coleman: At the moment we are in the process of negotiating the separation of the National DNA Database from the Forensic Science Service so that the NDNAD remains public ownership with direct access to the Police Service. With that will go what is known as the custodian who is the arbiter of the rules and regulations and standards surrounding the database. What we are arguing is that that role ought to be expanded firstly to become custodian of other forensic databases and we are thinking of issues such as the National Fingerprints Database and others that will come along. Then that role could actually be broader in terms of standard setting for new players entering the forensic market and one of the benefits of commercialisation of the market is that one would expect new providers to come in with new technology, new ideas and so on. They need to be accredited and we need to be reassured before we start trading with those people that the way they conduct their business is proper. Q342 Dr Iddon: Who would do the accreditations? Mr Coleman: That is the debate that is going on at the moment. In terms of DNA what we are looking at is the custodian becoming part of the Home Office which is directly linked to government as it should be in terms of provenance in the public sector. The custodian will operate probably by some form of contracting out an outfit that actually accredits and ensures quality standards in DNA providers. We see that as being a principle that could be expanded to cover people entering the forensic market and also periodical re-accreditation of players who are already in. We need to bear in mind, of course, that many of the providers - in fact all of the providers - have independent assessments through UCAS and so on so we know that the players in the market at the moment are well accredited and are capable of delivering a product that has integrity. What we need to do is have something in place that ensures that new people coming in are able to satisfy us the same. Mr Wolfendale: I would add that quality and public confidence in forensic science and the databases are paramount. I think we have to start from there and therefore the regulatory function - or whatever the function is described as - is an issue around the forensic databases. However, we do have a situation where the market - as Clive mentioned - has been around for around ten years. We have a near monopoly provider and we have two other providers who really have their roots in the public sector so it is not as if a major multi-national has come into this particular market. In my view - and I think we have seen this - there are some risks around how the commercialisation of forensic science develops and therefore perhaps a broader role being on the custodian in terms of dealing with those kinds of issues I think would be beneficial. I would return finally to the point as well about looking at this in a strategic way in terms of what technology and science does the Police Service need in order to improve its performance. That strategy could address that issue as well. Q343 Dr Iddon: Do any of you have any experience either directly or knowledge of police forces who use different suppliers of forensic data? If you have, can you tell us what problems those police forces might experience in getting the results on time and the application of those results? Are there any problems with multiply supply? Mr Coleman: There are a number of forces that use different suppliers to the FSS and there are a number of forces that use a mix of suppliers. Q344 Dr Iddon: It is the ones who use a mix that I am particularly interested in. Mr Coleman: There are some that have done it on a geographical basis. Thames Valley, for instance, used to put half of their work to FSS and half of it to Forensic Alliance on a geographical basis within the force. Some forces have put a particular kind of work to a different supplier, for example all their drugs work to one supplier and many of their other pieces of work to other suppliers. I think the experience by and large is that if forces have experienced problems with a supplier on a particular sector of work they have tended to move that work to another supplier at an appropriate time. The feed back I get from forces about different suppliers is that most forces are happy with their particular supplier at the time. I think the Met is probably distinctly different in that it has a particular strategy and Gary might want to enlarge on that. Mr Pugh: We use all three providers and we have approached this from the perspective of how do we get the best service to support tackling crime in London with a heavy emphasis on improving timeliness. The procurement exercise and the contracts we put in place focus on securing improved timeliness from the forensic science providers. We use all three providers in order to do that, to deal with the volumes of material particularly DNA in London. I have to say that using all three providers - including the FSS in a particular area of routine analysis - has delivered benefits to us. By putting it within that framework it also brings a discipline to both sides in terms of us having to manage demand into the providers and they have to deliver to the contracts and service agreements that we have set up. Q345 Dr Turner: Expert witnesses have to perform in courts. Sometimes things go wrong. The most blatant example I can think of is the most notorious murder in recent years in the Brighton area when the prosecution expert witness was being savaged by a sharp barrister who pointed out that the sample bag he was holding up and discussing was actually empty; the sample had gone missing. That is a fairly grotesque miscarriage of practice but nonetheless clearly expert witnesses have to be able to handle themselves in front of some very sharp legal sharks. How significant is the number of cases that are affected because the expert witness is not able to get the forensic evidence across to the court sufficiently well? Mr Coleman: I think what that particular example demonstrates is the need for some sort of checks and balances to be in place to satisfy the court that when somebody appears as an expert he or she is actually an expert. The problems that sometimes arise in that regard are that experts in particular fields are so few that it is actually very difficult to find somebody who is in a position to challenge an expert on an equal footing. I can think of people in soil analysis and issues like that where in some fields there are only two or three experts in the world on a particular topic so it does become extremely difficult. I think it does demonstrate again the value of independent accreditation by such bodies as the CRFP and bodies of that ilk. What we have found in our membership of the CRFP Board of Governors is that there are rival organisations that seek to claim themselves as organisations which can accredit expert witnesses and in a sense there is competition between two or three bodies that is not actually helpful. What we have tried to do is to encourage the CRFP to work with the other bodies to make sure that they understand what each other's boundaries and responsibilities are. Q346 Dr Turner: Gary, you would perhaps like to comment because the Met have submitted written evidence on this very point. Can you comment on how much impact the use of the CRFP register has had in getting consistency of performance in expert witnesses and is there any need to establish clear practices for the courts in dealing with expert witness evidence? Mr Pugh: I will defer to Clive who sits on the Council, but in terms of our particular experience I think there is an emerging issue in terms of registration and how we deal with individuals who are called into question. I have unfortunately one or two examples in London where expert evidence has been called into question. We have then carried out very extensive reviews of the work carried out by the individuals in terms of the contribution it makes. This takes us into a discussion with the Crown Prosecution Service around disclosure and whether or not there are previous cases that the defence need to have disclosure of. It links also into issues around where perhaps the individual may have been employed by the police services as a finger print service and how that interacts with the discipline process. I think there are a number of inter-connecting processes here that we perhaps need more clarity on. What I think we also need is an early warning system or a mechanism to alert us to where an expert is called into question so that we can take action to mitigate any effects of that on current cases. The CRFP, which I fully support, is still perhaps in its infancy in terms of its ability to manage the professional standards. Mr Wolfendale: I endorse everything Gary has said, particularly that the register is still very young. I now believe that the right organisations are involved in CRFP and are fully involved in its implementation. The pilot study which was undertaken in the north-west region proved successful and free of any controversy which I think is a good sign. Given that, I do think now that we have reached the point where the register is seen as the principal and prime guarantor of quality to the criminal justice system. As Gary has said, there are other organisations that would seek to query and muddy that ground and so that will have to happen within the next two years in my view. Finally, expert witnesses do fail sometimes and are not satisfactory but overall a lot of evidence telling is that cases that go to court with forensic evidence attached are more secure and they are more likely to succeed. We must never forget that. Q347 Dr Turner: Finally whilst we are on expert witnesses, what do you think could be done about making sure that the courts and juries have a sufficient knowledge base to be able to interpret the forensic evidence that is placed before them, and what do you think you can do to stop distortion arising from the adversarial nature of the judicial process? Mr Coleman: I am tempted to say change the adversarial nature of the process because the very essence of adversarial processes is to discredit the other guy's evidence. Unfortunately I think that creates doubt and uncertainty in the minds of the jury when often there is no need to do that. We have an independently accredited expert who is using techniques that have been well proven over many years and if the defence brings an expert who seeks to challenge that and put a different interpretation on it then there is not much that can be done about that in an adversarial system. It is a question of who presents the most powerful picture to the jury and who convinces the jury. Regrettably that is the nature of the system. Q348 Dr Turner: To be fair you are arguing from a prosecution perspective. Do you think the defence gets a fair crack in terms of handling forensic evidence? Mr Coleman: They have full disclosure of the forensic evidence; they have the opportunity to have the original material independently examined by their own expert and they have the facility to get experts in almost every case I would guess of equal standing to the person who is giving evidence for the prosecution. I think on the whole the defence does have a fair crack. Q349 Mr Key: How aware are people at all levels in the Police Service of the potential of forensic intelligence as opposed to traditional forensic evidence gathering? Mr Coleman: Not as aware as one would like them to be. I know that is not a particularly slick answer but forensic intelligence as a concept is relatively new. We have traditionally used forensic material in evidential mode, ie to support a particular prosecution case. What we are now moving into - particularly with the aid of digital databases - is the ability to spot patterns and connections between different crimes and different individuals. It is very important that we actually increase awareness particularly at front line level where officers miss opportunities sometimes to seize forensic material or to take DNA samples from individuals because they do not realise the value of actually doing that. There is a gap and we need to improve awareness. Mr Taylor: I think the National Intelligence Model is beginning to help here and it links back to an earlier question you raised about awareness. General awareness is important; we do not need to have experts in every field but general awareness about how to secure and preserve evidence and to secure scenes in order to call in people with relevant experience to forensically recover evidence or raw material that may be advantageous. The National Intelligence Model permeates the whole of the police organisation but at different levels. Officers are governed or conduct their daily business in accordance with the National Intelligence Model making the best of the information they have available to them but certainly making links between crime scenes, individuals, trends and commodities sometimes. That is helping focus attention to this particular area now quite well. Q350 Mr Key: Is evidence on these databases available to different suppliers of forensic services? What happens, for example, if a privatised sector has staff who are not security cleared? Do you check that? Mr Coleman: Speaking in terms of the National DNA Database and the National Fingerprint Database that is not accessible directly to suppliers; it is operated within a secure environment. Q351 Mr Key: Would it be available to a privatised forensic service? Mr Coleman: No, it would not. Not directly, no. Q352 Mr Key: I see. That is rather important, is it not? Mr Pugh: Yes. I think with regard to security clearance that may be one of the by-products of putting in place more formal contractual relationships with providers, that it is a requirement that their staff are security cleared and, for example, are CRFP registered so it provides a vehicle for doing that. Q353 Mr Key: How much research and development is going on into forensic intelligence at the moment? Mr Pugh: There is a significant amount of work going on in terms of developing the ability to miniaturise the DNA process for example which will increase the through-put of DNA profiles into the DNA database. There is work going on to implement a new National Fingerprint Database which is going to take place next year. We also have some work going on in relation to footwear and the potential to create a new footwear database; there is a new National Firearms Forensic Intelligence Database. So there are an increasing number of databases that are actually being put into place. Mr Wolfendale: As far as intelligence is concerned, could I just urge a note of caution here? There are a lot of agencies and a lot of suppliers who look to thrust the notion of forensic intelligence upon the Police Service. Part of the reason for that is because it is a good earner. I would like to remind us that in itself intelligence has no value; it only translates into value when it is transformed into evidence in terms of investigation or preventing a crime. Individuals and companies who promote the notion of forensic intelligence for its own worth ought to be treated with some degree of caution. Q354 Mr Key: Thank you for that. What input does the Police Service have into the Engineering of Physical Science Research Council's Think Crime grant programme? Mr Coleman: ACPO sits on the body that considers the bids and awards the grants and puts the Police Service view. Q355 Mr Key: Finally, are there any problems with allowing the presentation of novel forensic techniques in court? Mr Coleman: In terms of technology available there often are problems. Many of the courts are not equipped to deliver the latest means, DVDs and so forth. Many courts are not equipped to deliver evidence through those means. I think we will see an increasing move in the service towards trying to produce evidence using those media for ease of reference. Q356 Mr Key: Is that because of a shortage of resources for the court service or is it because of resistance from the judiciary or, indeed, from the Home Office? Mr Coleman: I do not think it is resistance; I think it is probably shortage of resources. Technology moves so rapidly that public investment just has not caught up with it. Chairman: Thank you very much for being good expert witnesses. Can I just say that it has been very helpful from your point of view because we hope we will be able to influence some of the policies in this area that you slightly touched on at the end. I think we got the messages about education in this field and the resources and support and we will do our bit in our report. Thank you very much for coming along today. Witnesses: Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Professor Steve Haswell, Analytical Science Group, University of Hull, Professor Tony Sammes, Centre for Forensic Computing, The Royal Military College of Science and Professor Sue Black, Department of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, University of Dundee, examined. Q357 Chairman: Can I welcome you to the Committee. I understand you are not all experts in every area so you can answer in any way you like. I hear, Professor Sue Black, that you have been involved in the Tsunami episode. Professor Black: I have, yes. I came back from Thailand last Thursday. Q358 Chairman: We are quite interested in that, what the problems have been in terms of how government, for example, and the departments within government have been interacting together on it. Have you seen any results of deliberations that you have that that could be effective? In other words, do we need to do anything at our level to make it better? Professor Black: I think that is now in hand, I am delighted to say. When forensic practitioners watch the news they watch it slightly differently from other people; we look at it as we are packing our suitcases expecting to be deployed. As an organisation who receive funding by the Foreign Office we began on 26 December to assist the UK. We had a considerable number of contacts with the Government which resulted in an absolutely deafening silence. In fact my deployment, as I went out to Thailand, was not on behalf of the UK Government but on behalf of a commercial company. It gave me an opportunity to assess things on the ground and having come back now I have a meeting this afternoon with the Foreign Office and a local authority later one this afternoon with the Metropolitan Police to take this matter forward, so it is in progress. Yes, we could have moved quicker; yes, we could have done things differently, but hindsight is a wonderful thing that must of us just do not have the grace to hold. Q359 Chairman: Thank you for that. We welcome also the man who is responsible for DNA and you will be gratified I am sure to hear that DNA is being used all over the place now in helping forensic teams. Let me start off by asking you what input any of you have into the forensic science degree courses. I am not going to repeat what was said in the last session but calling them useless was pretty close to what a lot of people thought. What are your views about this up-swell of courses going on to increase student numbers? Professor Jeffreys: I have no direct involvement but I have a real concern that there is an explosion of course. I had a quick look at UCAS yesterday and I found 422 single and combined degree courses are now on offer in the UK involving some aspect of forensic science. The courses are offered by 58 universities, most of them new universities. I have no idea what the quality of those courses is like. I think the Forensic Science Society which is the professional body has a major job on its hands in terms of accrediting some of these courses and these courses seem to really contradict the recommendations specifically from the Forensic Science Service and the Forensic Science Society that people entering into forensic science should have a basic degree - for example in chemistry, biology, physics or whatever - and then convert either through a masters mechanism or through in-job training. I have considerable concern about the value of these courses and about the fate of the people being recruited into them. Q360 Chairman: Chemistry was pinpointed by the previous witnesses and you will know I am sure that chemistry departments are struggling because of the RAE and other factors as well. Do you have a very strong view on that? Professor Jeffreys: Yes, I have an extremely strong view and it is not just for forensic science. A lot of forensic science is chemistry and you need chemists coming in there, not people trained on exceedingly broad forensic courses that attempt to cover the whole science and the technology which in my view is basically impossible. However, it is not just for forensic science. The pharmaceutical industry for example absolutely depends on a very vigorous chemical basis. Given the expansion within forensic science and within pharmaceuticals, to start closing university chemistry departments just does not make sense. Q361 Chairman: Can I ask the others if you have alternative views or other views about this whole situation which we have been examining? Professor Haswell: I support and echo the views there as a chemist and as someone involved in teaching forensic applications of chemistry. It is fair to say though that the forensic science courses are tracking students into science at some level that perhaps would not have been there at all. I have a good example. We have a young man who is now finishing his PhD who originally went out and was working in the commercial world. He went in because he wanted to do forensic science, understood his limitations and came and did more chemistry, built it up and has now finished something which is very worthwhile. It is a gateway in for people. I think it is a question of how universities look after that. Q362 Chairman: What would you do if you were vice-chancellor at Exeter University and you were closing a chemistry department and developing forensic science departments? How would you attract them into the basic sciences when you have these competing forces of money considerations and so on? Professor Haswell: Students applying for the forensic science courses are twice that for chemistry and chemistry with other subjects so there is a need and a demand from the consumer. I think it is a question of how you deal with the expectation of that customer, how honest you are with them and how you deliver and prepare those courses. Q363 Chairman: Is there anything we can do to merge them together other than just insisting that they must do it? Professor Jeffreys: There are a number of chemistry departments that do offer combined degrees in chemistry and forensic science. These are fairly recent developments and it is clearly a mechanism for attracting people in. You are absolutely right; kids are very excited about forensic science now for whatever reason and if we can use that to bring them into the basic sciences I think that is extremely valuable. Professor Sammes: I go along entirely with my colleagues on this. I am not absolutely convinced though that a first degree is appropriate for forensic activity. I think a basic science or engineering degree is essential. The forensic activity is probably better coming at post-graduate level and that is precisely what we are doing. I run a MSc in forensic computing. I would state, however, that a chemistry or physics first degree is not necessary; in the area of forensic computing IT degrees are equally acceptable. I would stress that the scientific method is the vital issue that underlies all the forensic activity. Q364 Chairman: When somebody sets up a forensic science course it is fairly obvious - it is hardly rocket science - that there must be basic chemistry or chromatography or whatever it is. Why does it not happen? That is what I do not understand. Professor Black: I think you have to look at who is offering the course. For example, the sex appeal of forensic is not just a problem for chemistry and physics; it is a problem for biology as well. In my discipline our problem was that archaeology departments had seen a way of introducing forensic anthropology into archaeology. With the best will in the world the body that is brought out of a harbour has much more of a relationship to a patient in a hospital than it does an Anglo-Saxon warrior. We had people taking information that they felt was applicable but generally was not so it was being concentrated perhaps on areas that were least applicable. When we then took those students out of their courses and took them onto the front lines in Kosova, in Bosnia and in Iraq these students were woefully under-prepared for what was required from them as a discipline. What we then said was that if that is the case then we have a responsibility as a university and as a practitioner in that subject to take our own subject by the scruff of the neck and bring it into line. We have gone away from the one year master's conversion course and we provide a full eight year career progression pathway for people in our discipline. You come in at day one and we train you right the way through for eight years. At the end of the eight years you are ready to look at accreditations with somebody like CRFP. I think the practitioners in the disciplines have to take some responsibility for those people that they are training to come along behind them. Q365 Chairman: How can they get that responsibility? How can they come to acknowledge this in themselves, given that universities have a certain amount of autonomy, for example? Professor Black: They do but it takes a considerable amount of foresight in the university. When I went to my university with what I wanted to do, they said that the last thing they wanted was to have a cap placed on their head or a badge around their neck that says, "This is another one of those forensic courses". We do not want that. The credible universities are looking at, if we are dealing with this subject, what do we need to do to produce practitioners at the end of the day that meet the needs of the market where these people are going for further career involvement. Professor Sammes: One way of doing this that we follow is to have an advisory panel which is advising the committee on the structure and the form of the course. That advisory panel is drawn from people who are practitioners in the field. Q366 Chairman: Subjects in higher education blow hot and cold; they go up and they go down. Do you think forensic science will burn out? Professor Black: Yes, I do. We have seen the first wave of forensics crashing and I think coming behind it is a wave that is much, much more aware that quality that is required. I think those universities who are now coming in on that second wave are in fact much more aware of the situation. They are the ones who are going to look to accreditation with professional bodies and when those courses become accredited those students who are aware will know where they have to go to look at this as a career progression. However, that does not stop the other universities who want to offer forensic investigation and music as a course to be able to do that; it is the students' right to choose it if they wish to go down that route. But if it is not accredited to somewhere that is going down a professional route then at least we would take away part of that problem. Q367 Dr Turner: What do you feel are the most promising areas of research and development in forensic science at the moment? What new applications can you see in the next few years? Professor Sammes: I think I can say that the digital area is taking off almost exponentially and is likely to continue to do so. Digital devices are becoming more and more common place in use and associated more and more frequently with crimes of one kind or another. I believe digital devices is one area where there is a considerable expansion needed. Professor Haswell: In my particular area - I am involved with the EPSRC panels - it is in the areas of more valid intelligent information on chemical and biological media and materials. One of the drivers in this is the ability to miniaturise a lot of the techniques we use which allows us then to take them into the field to get much more rapid, real time information which aids in both eliminating and identifying potential perpetrators. I believe that that is one are that is growing and this country is doing very well in leading in some of those areas. Q368 Dr Turner: I believe ACPO are members of that advisory panel. How useful is the input of the police perspective towards directing likely areas of research? Professor Haswell: I think what you have to realise is that the academic community out there - which is a formidable resource in terms of the UK being equipped to pull on that resource -are not guided well and they are not informed well of what the needs are. If you look at what has been funded through that programme I think out of the 29 projects that have been funded only four or five of them have been from biology or chemistry; most of them have come from digital processing data and manipulation. I think that is saying that that community of scientists are not seeing the pull towards forensic work. That is probably because it is not being explained to them in terms of what they can offer. I think we are not getting a lot of guidance -this is true in the course development and it is true in research - in what research needs are perceived by the user and I think without that you are not going to draw on the vast resources there that could be used. Q369 Dr Turner: Your comments lead directly to my next question which is what are our current strengths in forensic science research and practice and, given what you have just said, are you worried about us being able to maintain what is currently a world leading position in forensic science? Professor Haswell: I am worried about us using it effectively. When I look around at what people do in their research profiles and their general area you can always see tremendous opportunities to develop forensic support and forensic technology. That is simply not being tapped into. I think it is a kind of management problem more than a science based problem. It is just not being managed properly and exploited properly. Q370 Dr Turner: Another issue, given that forensic science is becoming marketised to a degree and may well be further marketised, can you comment on the funding base of research and development in forensic science because there is an obvious worry that with increasing commercialisation there will be less funding coming from the body that finally replaces the FSS for instance. Professor Haswell: Absolutely, it is a great concern that you will lose that focus and drive that is fundamental. I heard the discussions earlier; it is key that you have people who understand the fundamental science, who understand measurement and can interpret and relate to that. If you do not do that, you will not be able to move the science forward; you will not be able to have a future in terms of the demands of forensic science. Unless EPSRC or who ever picks up that mantle and manages it appropriately with the right focus, it will be lost. Q371 Mr Key: Who trains judges, lawyers and police in novel forensic intelligence technology? Does anybody train them? Professor Sammes: I can answer that we train police in digital electronics and computers and so forth in the forensic techniques associated with those. That is the only part I can answer. We have trained in the last five or six years some 700 students in that area. Q372 Mr Key: So there is no knowledge of anyone training lawyers. Does that make any sort of sense? Surely if you are presenting detailed technological evidence in court and the lawyers and the judges do not know what you are talking about, it is not really a very good idea. Professor Black: We have difficulty even in dealing with the repeated training of police officers because with the best will in the world they are here today and promoted to another force in six months' time and we have to start all over again. Certainly in some of the specialised areas in which we operate many police are unaware of what we are able and capable of doing. The knock-on effect of that is when you get involved in a major investigation there are often not aware of what the financial implication of that extended investigation is going to be from a scientific point of view. We have problems at the police level before even going beyond into the lawyers and the judges. Q373 Mr Key: Are you confident that the Home Office understands this novel technology? Professor Black: No. Q374 Mr Key: No? Professor Black: In many cases, no. Q375 Mr Key: Therefore ministers do not either. That is clearly a "no" from all four of you. Well, we have a problem, Chairman, do we not? If the Home Office - the sponsoring department -does not understand what is going on in the forensic service, what on earth are they doing privatising it? Professor Sammes: I did not respond to you directly but I am not sure that it is an entire "no" in the area of computer forensics. I think there is an understanding within the Home Office in that area and they certainly support what is now known as the Digital Evidence Group which is representatives of police forces, ACPO, Customs and Excise and is chaired by a Home Office gentleman. I do not think it is entirely true to say that the Home Office does not appreciate the computer forensics activities. Professor Black: But there are black holes. Professor Sammes: There are black holes, certainly. Professor Jeffreys: It is certainly my experience in DNA that there are plenty of informal routes for education. When we first came up with the technology entirely voluntarily on a very active programme we had discussions with judges and lawyers and so on and I think that is something that continues. The information does get out. Q376 Dr Turner: Your comments about the Home Office are somewhat worrying given that they are responsible for policy in this field. The comments that you have just made, Professor Black, about police officers moving around is equally true of civil servants. They are shuffled around as well. By nature they are generalists and not specialists so they will not start with a specialised background. Do we need some additional mechanism to ensure a consistency of expertise in the area of forensic science within the Home Office? Professor Black: Certainly if you look at the overseas involvement where we are deployed quite often by the Foreign Office, we have to re-invent that same wheel at the Foreign Office every time we are deployed. We have new personnel to meet who do not understand perhaps what identification process is required, what depth of forensic investigation is required and what is possible within the country. We are constantly re-inventing every single time the UK is deployed abroad. To a lesser extent we are possibly doing that in many of the police forces. Professor Haswell: The speed by which technology and the breadth by which science is developing is so fast that it is very difficult to capture the relevance of what is going on. Q377 Chairman: Where does RAE fit in forensic science? Professor Jeffreys: I know nothing about RAE ratings. Q378 Chairman: Is there not a separate committee for forensic science? Professor Jeffreys: No. Q379 Chairman: So it falls away and does not get assessed research-wise. Professor Black: Certainly within our university they are going through a process of wondering what on earth to do with me when it comes to the RAE. Q380 Chairman: Who funds the research and development and do you feel that enough of it is going on? How is it done, for example? Professor Jeffreys: Going back to the point about forensic science being an all-inclusive science that borrows technology wherever it can possibly get it, the critical thing is to ensure as strong as possible a line of communication from the forensic users - the Forensic Science Service or whatever - back to the academic community. I am not convinced that in Britain we really optimise that. Let me just give you one small example. The Forensic Science Service, if you go to their website or look at their annual report, it is great on the case work they are doing, they have a very active research programme there and it is almost completely invisible. As an outside academic I would like to open the window to see what is going on in there. Can we help them? Can they help us? Let us open up a far better line of dialogue. I do see this as a problem in the UK. Professor Black: My recent letter to the Home Office asked that very question. I am not a chemist; I am not a physicist; I am a biologist, where do I go to seek funding for biological based forensic research? My response from the Home Office was that if I was in England and Wales then I could link into research at the Forensic Science Service or with an independent provider like Forensic Alliance, but the quote was, "We do not know what happens in Scotland". Of course in Scotland the forensic service situation is allied to each of the independent police forces so that as a tapping in of research potential for funding that is not an option. Q381 Chairman: In England do these connections take place with the FSS and private providers of services? Professor Black: I have no first-hand knowledge. Professor Jeffreys: Certainly the private providers are really quite limited. I am not being rude about forensic scientists, but there is a culture of proud independence that you see right round the world in the forensic community. That sometimes stifles these interactions back into the academic community. Another example of that is: where are the Forensic Science Service headquarters sited? They are in Birmingham, really rather remote for many academic institutions. We are not optimising the interaction where we could take the incredibly vibrant and strong science base in the UK and have forensic science really capitalise on that in the best possible way. Q382 Chairman: Like in your case with DNA - and many other people with new technologies I guess - it is funded by research councils. Professor Jeffreys: My own research is funded by the Medical Research Council and it was made very clear to me that now that it had gone forensic it was a job for the Home Office and the MRC at that stage were no longer terribly interested in supporting it. Again I think that is a culture that is somewhat alarming, that forensic science belongs to the Home Office and medical science belongs to the MRC. That is a split which I do not think is helpful. Q383 Dr Iddon: Professor Jeffreys, as the person who showed the potential for the use of DNA fingerprinting in forensic science do you feel personally that you have been fully involved in the development of the applications in forensic science down the years since the discovery? Professor Jeffreys: Not at all, nor would I have wished to have been. The technology is way bigger than one person. I was privileged to have stumbled on this totally by accident 20 years ago. For me to claim ownership of the technology which has had such a remarkable impact would be wholly incorrect. I do keep a very careful watching brief on what technology is being developed and how it is being deployed, however. I am not washing my hands; I am just saying that it is way too big for me. Q384 Dr Iddon: Have you been happy in the way it has been taken forward or have you been critical in some instances? Professor Jeffreys: I have been critical in a few respects, particularly with some of the recent developments in the National DNA Database, for example. Q385 Dr Iddon: You have been quoted in the media as having said that DNA fingerprinting is no longer foolproof. Is that a true statement or is there media exaggeration? Professor Jeffreys: It is a true statement but I will get rid of the "no longer"; it never was foolproof. There is no such thing as a scientific technology that delivers foolproof answers. I think it is a trivial point, but it is an obvious one. Q386 Dr Iddon: Do you think the custodians of the National DNA Database have taken that on board, that it is not foolproof and never has been? Professor Jeffreys: Not to my full satisfaction. We know that that database will contain errors. There are no independent external audits of the nature of those errors or their frequency. The way the database is handled is primarily that the board of governors is essentially ACPO and FSS, I think with a member from the Human Genetics Commission as well. That does not seem to be quite as open and independent as I would have liked for a database of that size and that importance. I think there are issues about the quality of the database. Q387 Dr Iddon: Those questions were obviously directed at Professor Jeffreys but I would like to bring everyone in now. Familial searching is enabling the identification of suspects on the basis of their relatives' DNA samples. DNA is starting to be used to identify the physical features - the hair, the eye colour, et cetera - of suspects. How does that potential balance with the civil liberty angle? GeneWatch, for example, has some extreme concerns about this extension of DNA usage. Professor Jeffreys: I will happily comment on both. Familial searching I think is an interesting extension to the current use of the database. The database was established to retain profiles of convicted criminals so that if they re-offend they can be speedily apprehended. You are now using the database in addition for implicating relatives and I think that does raise some civil liberties issues. There is also one of practicality. Given the number of markers that are used in the current DNA database as soon as you start familial searching you lose a lot of the statistical discrimination, there are going to be an awful lot of people brought into the picture. That, I think, has potential adverse impacts on the way you use that information in a criminal investigation. Q388 Dr Iddon: It is ten markers now. Professor Jeffreys: Yes, and I would argue that that is not enough. Q389 Dr Iddon: You are arguing that it should be fifteen or sixteen. Professor Jeffreys: That is correct. If you look, for example, at the Tsunami disaster, the identification there is done on sixteen marker system and I would argue that the UK should be running at about that sort of number. Q390 Dr Iddon: Do you have any idea of how much that would increase the cost of DNA fingerprinting? Q391 Professor Jeffreys: In principal not dramatically. There are kits out there that will enable you to do a sixteen marker test with no extra time or very little cost implication compared to the ten marker test at the moment. The major problem is what we are going to do with the two and a half million databases that are primarily ten marker. Do we go back and re-test everybody and get them up to sixteen markers? That is the problem. As soon as you have opened very large databases it is extremely difficult to move into a new technological platform. Q392 Chairman: What is your advice about that, go back and start over again? Professor Jeffreys: In a perfect world yes, but again if you were to call me back ten years from now there would probably be some other technological platform and there will be even cheaper, quicker and more effective models. Q393 Chairman: Somebody could stand up in court and say that then. Professor Jeffreys: Yes. The science is never going to arrive at the ultimate solution. Somewhere down the line a line is going be drawn saying that this is as good as it is going to get and in the twenty years since forensic DNA started by definition we have not arrived at the right answer. I think the answers we have at the moment, the ten marker system, is not quite enough for a host of reasons. Q394 Dr Iddon: Do any of our other witnesses have anything to say on the line of questioning so far, particularly on familial searching? Professor Black: No. Q395 Dr Turner: Could you expand a little on reasons why uncertainties can arise in DNA evidence? Are you saying that it is normally presented in court in terms that there is a one in a million or whatever chance of this being somebody else other than the accused, does it affect these probabilities markedly? Are there technical reasons that completely pervert that evidence? Are we missing an opportunity with the database to use it also as a base not just for identifying people but as a pool of epidemiological research material? Professor Jeffreys: Could I start with the second question first because the DNA information that goes into the National DNA Database carries no information other than identity and relationship and to a very small extent ethnic origin. If you were to somehow marry together forensic databases with medical databases, the sort of information that for example would come from Biobank (the proposal to survey of 500,000 people), you would first of all have to use very different types of genetic markers and secondly that would raise major issues about the people who are entering into the criminal DNA database as to what right the police have of accessing genetic marker information that is important to them as an individual in terms of health risks. I would forever see forensic DNA databases and medical DNA databases being kept completely separate. I think it would be extremely difficult to see how one could sell to the public a forensic database which carries very sensitive medical information. How would you use it? How would the police look at a DNA profile? Q396 Dr Turner: I am not suggesting the police should use it. Professor Jeffreys: If they were to use it they would be faced with impossible decisions. Q397 Dr Iddon: Let us look at the situation where the FSS may go through GovCo and eventually to PPP which appears to be the Home Office's planned route for the FSS. If we get a PPP out of the FSS and it goes almost completely out of the public service that alters the relationship with all the databases, not just the National DNA Database but the Firearms Database and all the other databases that are associated with the FSS at the moment. Do you have any views as to who should be the custodian of those databases should the FSS become a PPP? Professor Jeffreys: As I understand it at the moment the owners of the database is ACPO and that I presume would not change. For a criminal DNA database I have no problems with that at all. Professor Sammes: I would agree with that. Q398 Dr Iddon: You have already commented on the access to the different databases; who should be the gatekeeper? Should it be ACPO for the access to the databases and set the standards and the rules of access to all these databases, not just the DNA database? It is not just the police who could have access to the databases; it is beyond the police, is it not? Professor Jeffreys: If the databases are expanding to include people who are not criminal then simply allowing anybody in the police to access the database willy-nilly would be inappropriate so in terms of guardianship there would have to be some different mechanism, some separate agency. Q399 Dr Harris: Professor Jeffreys, you just talked about the database being expanded beyond the criminals, but of course it already has expanded beyond the criminals. If you or I were arrested for protesting excessively by the standards of Mr Blunkett - which perhaps would not be very excessive at all - and that was a recordable offence, our DNA would be stored. Do you have concerns about the way that people never convicted or even charged with any offence appear to be on this database forever, uniquely, and that those people may cluster among certain groups in the population (ethnic minorities, social classes)? Professor Jeffreys: I have repeatedly argued that I am totally opposed to the extension of the database. I regard it as highly discriminatory for exactly the reasons you say, that you will be sampling excessively within ethnic communities, for example. The whole thing seems to be predicated on the assumption that the suspect population are people who would be engaged in future criminal behaviour. I have never seen any statistical justification for that assertion; none at all. Yes, it is discriminatory. I believe there has been one case that has gone to appeal and lost in the UK and has gone to the European Court of Justice. It will be extremely interesting to see their ruling on this. Q400 Dr Harris: Another issue that has been raised is the question of the fact that samples are retained indefinitely even when the data has been stored. Is it your view that there is a necessity to do that once the data - assuming it is protected and safe - does not have to be re-obtained? What are the benefits of retaining a sample and for example deciding whether to go to sixteen markers would you need the original sample again, versus the civil liberties issues of this indefinite retention? Professor Jeffreys: You have just answered the question that you need to retain these samples to cover yourself for the eventuality of a change in the testing platform. If we go from ten to sixteen markers and you want to update a database, you are going to go back which means keeping all DNAs. The potential concern I have there is what would the police be allowed to do with such samples and not do with such samples. It comes back to the question for example, of medical information being pulled out by DNA. If you have a DNA profile it is just a punch of numbers on the computer and it really does not matter, but if you have the original DNA sample then you have the potential to extract absolutely every scrap of genetic information of that individual from that sample. I would be reassured if there was very strict legislation in place that would limit the police in what they could do with those samples that had been retained. Q401 Dr Harris: We have also heard from GeneWatch which is not an organisation I usually agree with on these issues, but there is this question about research being done. There is no independent ethical oversight that you would expect and indeed require in respect of research ethics committees and so forth for samples outside the DNA Database and this research has been done for reasons of questionable purpose, for example the ethnicity profiling I guess of samples on the database. Do you have a view about the merits of that particular research project and can you comment on whether you feel there needs to be a greater provision for consent, ie some provision for consent in any research done? Professor Jeffreys: Informed consent lies at the heart of using human material in research. How one would implement an informed consent protocol for sampling from convicted people I have no idea. There is a clash there. Q402 Dr Harris: You could ask them. Professor Jeffreys: You could ask them, yes, but I am not sure what answer you would get. Q403 Dr Harris: Some will say yes and some will say no. What I am saying is that if you are interested you could ask them and as long as you asked enough people and you have a reasonable sample and it was not too biased by ID refusal rate - but that is always a problem with any such approach because some classes of people will not give consent to any research - then it is do-able. Professor Jeffreys: We are going back to another question which I did not answer, which is the whole issue of extracting physical information on individuals from DNA. I think that is a real concern because once you start pulling up information - if it can be done genetically, and I have considerable doubt about this - for example on facial features or stature or whatever, if that could be done I am pretty confident you would now be accessing genetic information which would be important to an individual in terms of genetic defects, disease, liability and the like. My recommendation and certainly my own personal bias is that the police should not be looking into such issues. That is an inappropriate area for genetic research for police. Q404 Dr Harris: In almost every answer you have raised serious concerns about things that are currently happening or might happen. Do you think there is an argument for there to be, for example, a Human Genetics Commission to set up the public consultation and inquiry into this and recommend to government that things be tightened up? Or do you envisage an alternative way of improving what you have described as an unsatisfactory situation? Professor Jeffreys: A Human Genetics Commission or some equivalent body would be exactly the mechanism that I would think would be able to identify the problems and make recommendations in terms of the proper way that the police use DNA information. Q405 Dr Harris: I want to ask about the presentation of forensic evidence in court. I have a series of questions in this particular area which is highly topical. What do you think the weaknesses are of the current system? Such problems as there are, is that a problem of expert witnesses not understanding the legal process or not being able to communicate well enough to both judge and jury? Professor Sammes: If I can speak personally for a moment, I have not found a problem in where I have requested to use technology, for example, to help put over a point. It has always been possible by talking to both counsel and to the clerk of the court and arranging with the judge to bring in equipment if necessary to do the presentation. It does seem to be that if you have a requirement to present in a particular way using modern technology you can arrange for it to happen. That has been my experience. Professor Black: I have experienced no problems whatsoever in the presentation of evidence to courts. Q406 Dr Harris: Some people feel that there has been a problem in the past and that is why arguably the CFRP was set up - Birmingham Six, et cetera - but perhaps the problem lies elsewhere and not in the issue of presentation. Professor Black: I gave a half answer; the other half answer is that for many of the professionals who are considered to be expert witnesses in court they frequently receive no instruction on what is required of them. If you have been a lucky professional to have had no problems presenting your evidence in court, you are one of the few. Certainly a lot of my colleagues who are called into court have no experience and they find that very little is explained to them as to what is required of them and they find the experience to be wholly unpleasant and feel that they have not presented in the way in which they had anticipated they would. Q407 Dr Harris: In terms of what is being done like the CRFP register, would you like to comment on whether that is having an impact here and, to be constructive, what should be done in respect of scrutiny, for example (someone watching what is going on and providing a report on performance in some way) or training for everyone who is going to enter a courtroom. Professor Black: The trouble is that CRFP cannot answer all of the questions that I think you want to place before it. Where you have a small discipline like my own then we all know who is undertaking work and we are actually the ones who are the guardians of who becomes registered and who does not any way. I have a problem with that but I do not see any other way around it when we have small areas of expertise. Q408 Dr Harris: Is that because you have a vested interest in keeping the club small like private surgeons so there is not much competition. Professor Black: I disagree with that. Quite the opposite, we have a vested interest in increasing the size of the number of individuals involved because only by doing that do you actually broaden the use of the discipline and bring more people into it. We do not have enough people trained in our discipline. We need to be able to get them the expertise to allow them to be mentored through CRFP. CRFP allow us to recognise that we are practitioners in the field who have reached a certain level of competence, but they do not in any way prepare us for the presentation in court. Professor Sammes: There is courtroom training available and we do take advantage of that. There are commercial companies which will provide you with courtroom training, take you to a court and allow you to go through the whole process which will allow expert witnesses or developing expert witnesses to gain confidence and ability in carrying out this process. Q409 Dr Harris: It is offered but not required. Professor Sammes: It is not required by anybody but I would recommend anyone who is a professional in this area should be doing it. Q410 Dr Harris: It is offered and recommended but it is not required. Do you think it should be required? Professor Sammes: I think it should in due course. I, too, strongly support CRFP and believe that that is the kind of route and the kind of thing where there should be very strong guidance that this should be carried out. Q411 Dr Harris: So it is strongly recommended, but not compulsory for people who are giving evidence about whether people are going to go to prison or not on a complex area to have training to be able to do that. Professor Sammes: I believe that it is essential but I do not see quite at this stage how it can be mandated. Q412 Dr Harris: Who should pay for it? The court system? The individuals themselves to get the work? Professor Sammes: Partly the employer of the individual and partly the individual I would suggest. Q413 Dr Harris: Can I ask Professor Jeffreys specifically and then expand it, using DNA fingerprinting as an example: what problems did you encounter when this was first used in court and how were they overcome? Then we can see whether there are any general issues about the new technologies and what sort of problems there are. Professor Jeffreys: Obviously there were major problems with education in terms of getting lawyers and judges to get their heads round what this new technology was about. That was all done outside the courtroom. I have to say, I am personally a great fan of the American system of pre-trial Frye hearings (this was introduced after a debate about the polygraph tests back in the 1920s). It is pre-trial hearing to examine a new science to look for three basic criteria: the first is whether it is based on solid science; second, whether that science is generally accepted by the scientific community; and third whether technology delivers information which is robust and reliable. We are in exactly that position and we have to do that much more in the context of the open court where we are asking a jury to make decisions about issues which are essentially scientific and have nothing to do with the law. My view is that the jury is not only not qualified to do that but it is positively unfair to ask them to make those sorts of decisions. If you accept that the science is all right then you are in a position to put that scientific information from the tests into the context of a given case and ask the jury to decide; that is right and proper. However, the initial scientific deliberation belongs to science rather than law. Q414 Dr Harris: Do you think psychological profiling which is very trendy at the moment would pass those three tests of scientific rigour? Professor Jeffreys: My personal view is with a degree of difficulty. Professor Black: I think that is true of many practitioners that deal not in the very basics of sciences - the chemistry, the biology, the physics - but are dealing with, for example, a professional opinion on how much force was required to cause an injury, how much somebody may have responded in a particular way to a circumstances, things that require the opinion of the expert. I think that becomes a very dangerous area in court. Dr Harris: Do you think the judges are getting enough training? We heard in the previous session that it was questionable as to how enthusiastic judges were to go back to school in respect of anything, particularly anything not specifically legal. Q415 Chairman: Are there challenges in court in the States, for example, between experts? They are always a bit ahead of us in that game. Professor Jeffreys: The very first major challenge in the United States involved open court discussion between defence and prosecution experts. They were scientists and took an interesting decision to simply walk out of the court together and as scientists together to come up with a view as to whether the evidence was reliable. In that case they decided it was not, because it would not have passed some of the basic tests that scientists have applied to the rebuttal of evidence. I do not know whether we would even be allowed to do that in the UK without suffering from contempt of court. I think there is a fundamental gulf between the philosophy of science and the philosophy of law and it does create a tension for scientists in an adversarial situation where everything is reduced to a blunt "yes" or "no" to try to convey a discipline which works on synthesis, on integration of evidence, on concensus and on probability as well. Q416 Chairman: Is there a situation where one expert has more titles than the other one and therefore they are definitely believable, Sir Alec? Professor Jeffreys: It depends on the chemistry between the witness and the jury. Totally. If you bore or if you confuse them they will switch off and they will ignore the evidence. It does not matter whether it is DNA or digital information or whatever, they will reject it. If you can somehow establish a rapport you can get away with saying anything and that worries me. I lost my faith in the adversarial legal system the first time I stood up in court because I simply did not realise that this was going on. Professor Black: The other side of the adversarial system is that when the defence ask who is the prosecution witness on this then frequently there are a number of people who will back down and will not go up in court against them. Q417 Dr Harris: Why? Professor Black: Presumably because they believe that the person the prosecution has aimed for is going to have greater credibility, greater presence and greater ability in court. There is, in many ways, a great scrambling in a lot of police forces to make sure that they get the person they want in the prosecution. Q418 Dr Harris: Do you think quite often the defence does not get a fair whack in terms of its own expert because the FSS has first pick, as it were? Professor Black: I have first-hand experience of that, of being brought into a number of police forces to ensure that I was not brought in with the defence. Q419 Chairman: What should happen? Should there be a ballot allowed? There is evidence to be presented here and you are telling us there is some bias in how it is received. How do you get round that? Have you thought about a way of doing it? Professor Black: At least if we had registration of other professionals through the CRFP there are other options available, but there is unquestionably a league table among expert witnesses. Q420 Dr Harris: I want to deal with the issue of risk and probability, and I want to come to a question that was not answered because the Chairman asked an even better question. In these high profile cases on Sudden Infant Death or infanticide one of the issues has been whether the issues of probability has been well communicated and well understood. It has been put that a witness would give their opinion and if that is misinterpreted or not sufficiently questioned by defence counsel in this case or a defence expert or the judge, then it is wrong to hound the witness as if they have been malicious in what they have done. I come back to the question, how do we deal with getting across this issue of probability and is there more training that judges should have in order to make sure they understand the basics of this so that they can step in? Q421 Professor Jeffreys: In a perfect world you get rid of the probability of statistics. Coming back to DNA, if you have a sixteen marker system you can basically say, "That DNA came from that person. Full stop. There's no-one else on the face of the planet unless that person has an identical twin." That is a facile solution to the problem but if you are left in a world where you are having to describe probabilities, then there are two issues here. The first is the description of accurately derived probabilities and that is the job of the expert. If you come to the cases of Sudden Infant Death and the probabilities that have been cited in cases there, they were completely incorrect; I think any statistician would have picked that up. Secondly, if the probabilities are correct - in other words the expert has done its job properly - it comes down to how those probabilities are appropriately explained in court without unduly unbiasing the jury one way or another. That is a tricky one which still Home Secretary not been adequately solved; it is a very difficult area. Unless you want me to go on for the next hour on a diatribe on statistics. I will stop now. Professor Haswell: A comment I have is that you can shorten the odds if you increase the quality and robustness of the data that you are using. I believe that rolls you back to the research front of this, which is to develop that capability. Q422 Dr Harris: Mistakes will always be made not necessarily with malice and I was wondering what safeguards there are. If, in the example you give, a statistic in this SID case was clearly wrong, I do not understand why the defence witness did not point it out and the judge could not have understood. If we are thinking about the same thing, it is not a difficult concept to anyone who has a basic knowledge of statistics. I am concerned about miscarriage of justice and wondering what extra safeguards could there be around judges being there and defence witnesses being competent and not intimidated. How can we deal with this problem because it is a current problem? Professor Jeffreys: In the case of Sudden Infant Death that was a failure not only of the experts but also the courts and how one rectifies that I have no idea. I was amazed that that was not tracked right at the beginning. It was obviously statistical flawed. To make a statement that DNA matches and that profiling is present in one person in a hundred million or whatever is not a useful way of stating the strength of DNA evidence unless you know how that DNA match was found in the first place. Was just one person tested? Was the entire database looked at, in which case you are going to get extremely rare matches given the size of that database? The statistics have to be put very accurately into the context of how that information is developed in the first place. Q423 Chairman: Lab-on-a-chip technology would really help the police so that they could do the tests. How is that developing? Professor Haswell: It is painfully slow. We have taken quite an early lead in this I believe in this country and it has all slowed down, part of that is due to the very slow through-put through the research councils. It can take two years from an idea to funding, by the time you have gone through an outline and a full proposal. Fast-tracking has to be looked into; we need better focus; management has to be looked into. Q424 Chairman: That is so you can do the tests at the scene of the crime. Professor Haswell: Technology is capable of doing that now. The capability is there, what it requires is a concerted focus to develop that and to deliver it to the people who want to use it. That is obviously going to require funding. That funding is more or less there if used wisely, if you do not spread it so thinly that you cannot achieve anything. Q425 Chairman: If you were Charles Clarke for a day what would you say? Professor Haswell: I would asses what it is going to take and the timescale you can do it over and focus and manage that piece of research pulling the expertise, the research basis that you have already funded (they are in the universities) and make it happen. That is what is happening in Korea; that is what is happening in Japan. Q426 Chairman: We are ending on a unanimous note here because I see the previous witnesses absolutely in agreement with you on this. I think that is a pretty solid recommendations. Professor Haswell: It comes down to management, it needs getting hold of and dealing with. Chairman: Thank you. I wanted to finish on that kind of note and I think we have done it. Thank you very, very much for your expertise and raising some of the problems that you meet first hand, and giving us your advice and professionalism to help us move it forward. |