CFS Bulletin
Issue 4 September 2012
w: www.ucl.ac.uk/forensic-sciences
e: jdi-forensic-sciences@ucl.ac.uk
@UCLForensicSci
in this issue:
• The changing face of forensic
services in the UK now that
the Forensic Science Service
has been dissolved
• Major review of the forensic
evidence used in over 10,000
criminal cases in the US may
lead to more guilty verdicts
being overturned
• The 6th International Crime
Science Conference - we profile one of the forensic science
sessions
• Exploring future collaborations
• Reaching out to school students and encouraging them
to study STEM (science, technology, engineering & maths)
subjects - a profile of recent
events
• Upcoming events and news in
forensic science
The changing face of
forensic services in the UK
In June police services in the East
Midlands reported on1 their new
East Midlands Special Operations
Unit – Forensic Services (EMSOUFS) which opened a “state of the art”
Identification Bureau on 19th June,
launched by James Brokenshire MP
(Minister for Crime and Security).
The EMSOU-FS was created out of
collaboration between Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Derbyshire
police services and works on analysis, identification and crime scene investigation. Early reports suggest that
offenders are being identified much
more rapidly since the EMSOU-FS
started work in April 2012, and the
hope is that this unit will save more
than £9.5 million for the three police
services over a four year period.
Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick
Creedon believes that: “This is a pioneering area of work which is already
beginning to show its value. In addition to saving money, it provides us
with greater efficiency and resilience.
New...approaches to technology have
been implemented which will speed
up processes, allowing the forces
to bring offenders to justice more
quickly...” Time will tell as to the
long-term efficiency and cost-saving
1: http://bit.ly/LBN6yN
benefits of this unit, but it is a sign
that police services are moving on
from the closure of the Forensic Science Service. Some in the field have
expressed their reservations about
the in-sourcing of forensic services –
including Professor James Robertson
at the University of Canberra, who
referred to it in his guest lecture at
the CFS (see the April CFS Bulletin2).
Writing for the Royal Society of
Chemistry’s membership magazine
RSC News in April, Professor Jim
Fraser (Director of the University of
Strathclyde’s Centre for Forensic Science) argues that following the closure of the FSS, England and Wales
face an “uncertain and unstable
future…with extensive ‘in-sourcing’
of forensic work by the police.”
He worries in particular that police
services “…are historically resistant to independent accreditation of
forensic science” and that lack of a
national framework of independent
accreditation for forensic services
may lead to different levels of efficiency and accuracy in different
areas, which has implications for
criminal justice across England and
Wales.
2: http://bit.ly/wxebeE
FBI and US Department of
Justice will review over 10,000
criminal cases
In July, the FBI announced3 a review
of thousands of criminal cases dating
back to 1985, following concerns
over the validity of the forensic
evidence used. In many cases guilty
verdicts were reached based on
forensic hair and fibre analysis and
other methods, which are no longer
deemed admissable, may have been
used to convict suspects. Numerous
investigations have already taken
place into individual cases, resulting
in some verdicts being overturned.
In a 2009 report the US National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) called
for a national body to set standards
for forensic science so that all analysis would be consistent. The actions
of the FBI and the US government
confirm the desire for an official
review of forensic science standards
in the US.
Forensic scientists in other countries will no doubt be watching
these developments with interest,
and perhaps wondering if their own
work would stand up to such scrutiny. There is concern that the recent
fragmentation of forensic science
services in the UK may only exacerbate any existing problems with
validation of methods. The planned
closure of the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and the
proposed introduction of a national
College of Policing4 to “share best
practice among officers, develop
professionalism and set standards
for specialist skills training such
as investigation, intelligence and
firearms” is imminent, and it may be
that standards in forensic science will
form part of the College’s remit.
3: http://wapo.st/NoeZNQ
4: http://bit.ly/M2Itiq
Exploring future
collaborations
The CFS is exploring opportunities for research collaboration and
consultancy with practitioners,
professional organisations and other
academic institutions. Earlier in the
year the Centre was awarded some
funding by UCL to work with different groups investigating the potential
for delivering short courses, lectures,
seminars and other forms of continuing professional development
(CPD) in the future. Colin Moorhouse joined the CFS in March 2012
to work on this project with Dr Ruth
Morgan and the CFS steering group.
In August 2011 Colin retired from
the Metropolitan Police Service,
where he worked initially as a detective and then over the last 16 years
on community policing and youth
crime prevention. He has worked
on projects with a range of partners
including Community Safety Teams
and Children’s Services, Office for
Mayor of London, Department
for Education, National Strategies,
Council of Europe and European
Commission.
Over the next few months we hope
to develop and trial some initial
short courses, and to investigate
how we can work with police and
forensic science providers on new
research. As part of this initial
process we hosted two workshops
at UCL in early September, at which
police, forensic scientists and other
academics took part in discussions
about the future of forensic science
provision, training and development,
and research. In November we will
be attending the R&D conference in
Warwick led by the Forensic Regulator, which will hopefully be a fruitful discussion of forensic science
research and development at the
national level.
6th International Crime
Science Conference
The 6th annual International Crime
Science Conference took place on
4th July at the British Library. The
theme was “Resilient Infrastructure
and Building Security” and the CFS
ran a session on the detection and investigation of infrastructure attacks.
James French, one of our PhD students, gave a talk on his research into
the secondary transfer of gun-shot
residue and this was received with
interest by delegates from the Home
Office and the Metropolitan Police
and generated interesting discussion.
Georgia McCulloch - who is starting
her PhD with us in September on
forensic soil analysis - attended the
session and writes:
Bio-Protect: detecting airborne pathogens
As part of this year’s session on the
detection and investigation of infrastructure attacks, Vincent Chauvet
presented details of the FP7 project
he is currently co-ordinating: BIOPROTECT1. The ongoing project
aims to develop a system capable
of detecting airborne pathogens in
order to alert security personnel of
an impending biological threat. The
malicious or accidental release of
harmful airborne bacteria, spores
or viruses has the potential to cause
substantial numbers of casualties,
as was the case in the US when five
people died and seventeen were
infected in 2001 as a result of anthrax
spores sent through the post.
1: http://bit.ly/NQEaGG
The device under development by
BIO-PROTECT will combine and
improve upon existing technologies
in order to meet the needs of end-users by delivering a small, automated
system with low maintenance costs
suitable for continuous monitoring
of public spaces, medical facilities
and food processing plants. The
device will monitor the background
air conditions and detect any potential threats by laser induced fluorescence. Suspicious particulates are
then concentrated and decomposed
by pyrolysis, the resulting fragments
separated by gas-chromatography
and their mass determined by ion
mobility spectrometry. The resulting
characteristic chromatograms and
mass spectra will then be processed
automatically and compared against
library data for known pathogens.
This ambitious project requires
significant effort to miniaturise and
integrate existing instrumentation,
to reduce analysis times and running costs and to develop the pattern analysis software and reference
data required to ensure accuracy.
Although still in the development
stages, the system has been demonstrated as having sufficient specificity
to successfully discriminate between
the three types of bacteria tested to
date. Once the remaining challenges
are tackled, the BIO-PROTECT
device will be able to act as an early
warning system to allow timely evacuation or decontamination of areas
experiencing elevated concentrations
of biological agents, thus reducing
the impact of bio-terrorist attacks or
accidental releases.
Georgia McCulloch
Bringing forensic science
into schools
As part of the Centre’s outreach
activities, members of the CFS have
been involved in various events this
year focusing on encouraging school
students to take up STEM subjects.
Nadia Abdul-Karim is one of our
PhD students and has been involved
with the STEM Ambassadors Programme1 since her undergraduate
degree – she now works with UCL
Chemistry Department on outreach
events:
“In June I went to Our Lady Convent
School in Hackney, to demonstrate
spectroscopic techniques to their AS
level students. It was for a couple of
hours and the students were tasked
with identifying unknown liquids
and powders from data generated
through conducting Infrared and
Mass Spectroscopy. The scope of the
workshop was to supplement what
the students learn through the curriculum and it was also an opportunity for them to ask questions about
further education options and what
doing a degree is really like.”
In July The Big Bang Fair London
took place at Westminster Kingsway
College. This is an event for school
students to attend to find out more
about STEM disciplines and compete
for a place at the National Big Bang
Fair in March 2013. I took part in the
event as a STEM Ambassador, judging student projects alongside another Ambassador (a field engineer
at CrossRail). We saw three projects:
an investigation into the effectiveness
of coastal defences against tsunamis;
a project designed to find alternative
and sustainable ways of growing food
in Kenya; and a ‘backyard science’
project which entailed making water
rocket launchers out of scrap materials. The enthusiasm and hard work of
the students involved was clear to see
and two of the projects went on to
win places at the national event
1: http://bit.ly/cym71U
taking place next year.
In July I also gave a talk on forensic
evidence at Abbotsfield School for
Boys in Hillingdon, London. This
was as part of a whole day of forensic
science workshops organised by the
school, in which students collected
evidence from a mock crime scene.
The younger boys (aged 12-14)
enjoyed testing for fingerprints and
analysing ‘blood’ and ‘drugs’ from
the scene, and one was shocked to
discover that all the suspects were
female because “Girls don’t do drugs
Miss!” The older boys (aged 14-16)
were more aware of the need to keep
evidence from being contaminated,
but they enjoyed looking at photos
of blood spatter as much as their
younger counterparts did(!), and
they made some good investigations
into how the bloodstain patterns may
have been caused.
Kirstie Hampson
Stay in touch
Recent events
6th European Academy of
Forensic Science Conference
20th - 24th August 2012
Netherlands Forensic Institute,
The Hague, The Netherlands
The Evidence Conference is a
comprehensive 2-day event covering evidence collection, handling,
analysis, and chain of custody. It
is an inaugural event being run
by Forensic Magazine, DFI News
and Vicon Business Media.
The title of the EAFS2012 conference was “Towards Forensic
Science 2.0”. Members of the CFS
attended and presented papers including Dr Dave Lagnado, Professor David Balding, Dr Itiel Dror,
Dr Ruth Morgan, and several of
our PhD students.
http://bit.ly/OY1qqo
http://www.eafs2012.eu/
The Forensic Regulator Mr Andrew Rennison has called for this
conference to explore opportunities for collaborative research and
development. Participants will
come from forensic science, law
enforcement, the judiciary, training and education, and research
and development and the discussions held at the event will shape
the future of forensic science
R&D in the UK and further afield.
Upcoming events
Science and Justice:
The Criminal Court
Saturday 22nd September 2012
Robens Suite, Guy’s Hospital, London Bridge, London
This event will be run by The British Academy of Forensic Sciences:
a multidisciplinary organisation,
including lawyers, forensic scientists, doctors and psychologists. It is chaired by the Institute
of Psychiatry’s Professor Mike
Kopelman.
http://bit.ly/N1maZT
The Evidence Conference
October 20th-21st 2012
Washington DC, USA
Forensic Horizons: Promoting
Awareness of Research & Development Internationally
Friday 9th November 2012
University of Warwick Conference
Centre, Coventry
To keep up-to-date with news
from the CFS, events we are running and external news in the
forensic science field, why not
visit our website and follow our
newsfeed on Twitter?
w: www.ucl.ac.uk/forensic-sciences
@UCLForensicSci
e: jdi-forensic-sciences@ucl.ac.uk
provide a means for the academic
community to describe the nature and characteristics of programmes in a specific subject or
subject area. They represent general expectations about standards
for the award of qualifications at a
given level in terms of the attributes and capabilities that those
possessing qualifications should
have demonstrated. This subject
benchmark statement refers to
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
forensic science.
http://bit.ly/NdOHyL
For more news and information
about events, see our website
and Twitter feed.
http://bit.ly/OY1t5G
News
The draft consultation has now
been published for the QAA new
subject benchmark statement for
forensic science. Responses must
be submitted by 28th September
2012.
Subject benchmark statements
cfs bulletin
JULY 2012
Editor: Kirstie Hampson
Contributors:
Georgia McCulloch
Next issue
December 2012