In an unprepossessing building in Lambeth, across the river from the Houses of
Parliament, scientists work to bring about the downfall of some of the
country’s most dangerous criminals. You can learn a lot about human
behaviour here in the offices and laboratories of the Forensic Science
Service (FSS). Many burglars prefer Nike trainers, for example. Human drugs
mules, who carry packs of cocaine in their stomachs, often give themselves
away by shunning the trolley service on long-haul flights.
The detailed research that reveals such patterns does not come cheap, so the
FSS, just as other former government organisations, such as Qinetiq, is
trying to become a more commercial enterprise.
Originally the FSS was part of the Home Office or, in the case of forensics in
London, part of the Metropolitan Police. Then it became a government-owned
company, or GovCo, in 2005. Last year the Government backed down on plans to
privatise the organisation, but unions fear that a sell-off remains on the
agenda.
The FSS sells its services to the police and to commercial customers,
including to individuals for paternity testing, businesses for fraud
investigations and defence lawyers and private detectives. Even those who
dump industrial waste could be tracked down through the FSS’s work with the
Environment Agency.
The agency is also developing an overseas business, helping other countries to
refine their forensic work and establish DNA databases. It has worked for
Kuwait recently and is in negotiations with other states in the Middle East.
The majority of the FSS’s work, however, still comes from police in the UK.
Its fees vary depending on the complexity of analysis required: a murder
investigation can cost anything from several thousand pounds to hundreds of
thousands of pounds.
The agency will not disclose how much it charged for its work on the Soham
murders, but the investigation into the murders of the ten-year-olds Holly
Wells and Jessica Chapman was one of the longest carried out by the FSS. Ian
Huntley was convicted after 14 months of forensic work matching fibres from
his clothes and carpets to those found on the murdered girls’ clothing.
The FSS’s work attracts media attention in big crime investigations, but the
agency tends to be left out of more routine police operations. In London it
is involved in less than 1 per cent of crime, but it is used in all murders.
Of the Metropolitan Police’s £3 billion budget last year, about £45 million
was spent on forensic science.
The FSS’s significant recent growth has been driven by a surge in the use of
DNA analysis as a crime-solving tool. The number of crimes solved through
DNA profiling has quadrupled over the past five years. Scientists no longer
need complex body fluids such as blood to make a DNA profile; it can be
derived from a small particle of skin and sometimes sweat. A used coffee cup
may be able to provide a complete DNA profile.
DNA detection is also set to become far easier. DNA Boost, the FSS’s latest
technology, allows more information to be gleaned from small amounts of DNA
and also from samples that need to be isolated when they have mixed with the
DNA of other people. The technique is in trials before its use is made
widespread.
However, in what has been dubbed the “CSI effect” (after the
American forensic television series), criminals are getting increasingly
savvy about forensic science. Convicted criminals even write from their
prison cells to Dave Werrett, chief executive of the FSS, to say that their
prison “university” is teaching them the ways to avoid detection.
However, just as criminals proffer yet more DNA and documentation evidence
merely by writing such letters, Mr Werrett believes that most criminals will
leave something at the crime scene that will betray them.
“We’ve had 100 years of fingerprints and they are still leaving fingerprints.
But there is more awareness. It is, as the American’s refer to it, the CSI
factor.”
Mr Werrett was in the forensic team that pioneered the use of DNA to convict a
killer in 1986. Since then it has become the leading method of detection. It
represents half of the FSS’s work. The FSS also operates the national DNA
database for the Home Office.
The prison letters to Mr Werrett and his colleagues highlight another key area
of work for the FSS — that of analysing correspondence and plans that
terrorists and other criminals often compile. In Lambeth, handwriting is
analysed down to the last dot and swirl and shredded documents are
painstakingly reassembled by scientists, who shudder when asked if they like
doing jigsaws in their spare time. It is laborious work — but rewarding when
the pieces fit together.
The breadth of the FSS is striking. The scientists who work there look at the
letters of alleged Muslim fundamentalists, test consignments of drugs
brought into Heathrow and other transport hubs, unearth mobile phone records
from the phone hardware, look after firearms seized in London or investigate
deaths. And that is only the work in the office. Out in the field, they will
be at the scenes of some of the country’s biggest crimes.
The FSS’s commercial rivals tend to specialise in niche areas. Mr Werrett
believes that his agency has the edge because its wide range of expertise
allows it to draw on a range of evidence during criminal investigations.
There are three main competitors to the FSS — LGC Forensics, Orchid Cellmark
and Key Forensic Services. Together they have taken 14 per cent of the
forensic science market.
Not only do the rivals nibble away at parts of the FSS’s business, but they
also can provide a check on its work.
The FSS is facing an inquiry into its performance on the Damilola Taylor case,
which is being conducted by Alan Rawley, QC, and Professor Brian Caddy,
after scientists were found to have missed clues. Traces of Damilola’s blood
were found on a trainer by FSS’s rival, LGC Forensics, a fully commercial
organisation that used to be the government’s chemist.
The FSS’s status as a GovCo will be reviewed in July. The unions fear that
already the decision has been made to put out all or part of the FSS to the
private sector and that the issue will not be debated by Parliament.
PCS, the civil service union, wants the GovCo status to remain for at least
two full financial years to show whether it is successful in that format.
That would keep it public until April 2008.
Mr Werrett says that he is neutral about the status of the organisation, but
he adds: “We look forward to July with eager anticipation.”
