DOCTOR CROW: I'm particularly looking forward to the upcoming presentation. Britain has faced many of the problems that we face and faced them earlier and solved many of them, so we will get some more of it this afternoon.

It's a pleasure to introduce Lynn Fereday, who will talk about DNA from fingerprints. It's all yours.

Lynn Fereday LYNN FEREDAY: Thank you, everyone. It's a great pleasure to be with you and to talk to you about some recent innovations regarding protection of DNA from fingerprints and contact tracings. PARTICIPANT: Can you turn that up a little bit? LYNN FEREDAY: My involvement with DNA has been since the introduction of DNA back in 1987 in the U.K. I was involved with Dave Barrett and others in setting up the first laboratory where training and operations occurred; and subsequently, I was involved in the setting up of thedatabase in the U.K.

After this presentation, on fingerprints, I could tell you a little bit about how many procedures we went through when we set up the database and how we set up our legislation. Many of the issues on that hinged on the discussion today. So I'll just begin with my talk on fingerprints.

Back in June of 1987, there was a publication by Roland Vanoorsho at the Victoria Science Center in Australia, and he described how they could take DNA profiles from objects that have been handled.

The work they did centered on a case where Maxwell Jones was involved in a Melbourne suburb of Sunshine. This was a domestic stabbing in which a knife was discovered. There was blood on the blade of the knife. Maxwell Jones wanted to identify the assailant's blood or the handle of the knife. The profile handled the knife and got a profile from the assailant, or the suspect, I should say, but there was no evidence of blood presence. So in order to answer the question, how did you know it was blood, or where did it come from, a series of experiments were undertaken in which profiles from palms and other items were actually identified, a leather brief case, handles, pens, car keys, a locker handle and telephone set were all swabbed and profiled. In each case, the correct profile was obtained. Some of these items revealed DNA more readily than others; and to some extent these are predictable items, items like a leather briefcase and locker handles where consistent use or prolonged use occurs, you could expect to find or detect the DNA profile.

In addition to those samples, some cleaned items were profiled. There was a plastic knife handle and a glass, which also revealed DNA profiles after contact after the items had been cleaned. The Forensic Science Service had also undertaken similar work where we take DNA profiles for swabbing of palms, vehicles, and telephone hand sets.

The work I'm going to present involves analysis using our second generation multiplex, the SGM, which contains six loci and the amonogen test. The SGM is the STR technology, which is database.

The first big thing is washed hands will give no profile for at least a half an hour. So when looking at DNA on these touched objects, you have to work on where the material is actually carried from. We have found that different people shed cellular material to different extents. We have characterized these individuals as good, medium or bad donors or shedders, and this is reflected in our ability to obtain a DNA profile.

Interestingly, the last person to touch an object does not necessarily leave the strongest profile, but the DNA profiles detected will reflect the history or the use of an object.

This graph shows different individuals whose hands have been swabbed and to the different extent to which you can reveal a DNA profile from them.

This individual obviously is a good shedder or donor. This one is poor. And this one again is poor. I mention those three, because I have profiles from these individuals, which I will show you later basically just showing the different individuals' ability to leave DNA after contact.

So the question is what exactly is detected. A good shedder leaves a large amount of cellular material from their palm and fingerprints; and if you press -- if the hand is pressed on a cellular acetate sheet, what is left behind can actually be seen. It is visible. Other experiments involved pressing hands on a microscope slide and then staining it with differential hematoxylin staining. What has been observed are small amounts of tissue. From the good donors, you actually see some nuclear material.

So obviously DNA profiles would be obtained from the good donors. That doesn't mean to say DNA can't be detected from sweat. There are glands in the body that produce sweat, those in the hands and the hair where DNA is produced in the sweat so it's not just the presence of cellular material. The presence of sweat can also produce DNA profiles.

This is a diagram and representation of what is observed in the different stages of good and bad donors. You see where the trace material is left behind. We have a profile of that donor where just one allele seems to fit, another donor where three complete loci have been detected; and a good donor where a profile of five complete loci and two further alleles were detected. We were using the SGM system, the multiplex system.

I don't want the scientists amongst us to be too amazed of the results, but this is an example of the fingerprint taken from a bad donor, and only one loci is observed.

PARTICIPANT: Could you put that up a little bit. Push it up a little bit.

LYNN FEREDAY: Sorry. Okay. Here we have a fingerprint from a medium donor. Interesting enough, there are some alleles present which don't belong to the donor, which probably transferred secondarily, which I am going to talk about in a moment. And these are poor profiles, but this is what we are getting at the early stage using SGM.

Here we have a profile from what we classify as a good donor. It's a lot cleaner than previous ones, still not the end of the story. There is still more work to be done.

So when we are looking at DNA for palm prints, what we have done is to modify the instruction protocol. In the U.K., we plan to use the key extraction method. We are now moving to using carogen; and other extraction methods, phenyltorophen will obviously not be equally effective, if not more so. Obviously, extraction is key since we happened to cover this area, and I can go through it.

PARTICIPANT: Excuse me. Could you repeat the form of extraction which you are using for this.

LYNN FEREDAY: We are moving to carogen in these experiments.

The application procedures is also utilized. For routine casework, STR technology has been validated using set cycles in the application stage. Here the reason for that is to ensure that when you came to interpretation, you could rely on the results. You wouldn't pick up the low levels of DNA with providing preference. Here the application stays increased to 34 to allow for picking up the low levels of DNA.

The latest results using the new SGM plus technology has profiles from the palm print where someone has gripped an object.

Now, secondary transfer has also been detected. That means if I were to touch this microphone, I could rub DNA on it. Besides leaving my own traces, I would pick up traces, and early experimentation showed that I could transfer whatever I picked up on to something else. This is the sort of danger area that we are in at the moment. We have to understand what it is we are detecting and determine it carefully.

A hand swab has been taken, and the profile of a partner has been revealed, extreme force being factored, the secondary DNA has been secondarily transferred. Again, shaking hands, as I indicated earlier, I could shake hands with someone, not only would I pass some of my DNA onto them, but I could pick up DNA from the individual's hands I am shaking, but also pick up some DNA from someone else, who I had previously shaken hands with, whatever the contact is.

Another interesting twist is in strangulation cases, there have been examples where a manual strangulation has occurred. Marks on the neck of the victim of the deceased have been analyzed, and the DNA profile of the assailant found from trace material left. This is not due strictly to the neck, but if an arm has been used, or the hands of the assailant have been swabbed and traces from the deceased have been uncovered. Examples using the earlier STR technology called for four loci were analyzed.

Similarly, the ligature is found at the scene. Generally, a great deal of force is used in strangulation. Sufficient material from the hands of the assailant would be left on the ligature so it is an opportunity to look at the ligature and perhaps recover DNA profiles from the assailant. Another interesting option, which hasn't been considered previously.

The situation that one is faced now is how long does DNA persist. We all know that DNA, being a biological material, if it is not kept in ideal conditions will deteriorate. In fact, fingerprints or contact traces are a slightly different situation. We just don't know how long it persists, DNA will persist on objects. We are looking at various experiments to actually test the situation. Such items such as polypropylene to acetate sheets are being touched and left lying around to see how long DNA would persist or to what extent it would deteriorate, and background levels of DNA are being explored in terms of looking at door handles, telephone hand sets, to see what one would normally expect to see residing on such items.

Just to come back to the critical issues. Obviously, contamination is a very important issue. Extra is detected from what has come from previous contacts. We need to be aware of this when we come to interpreting our results. So we need to look at precautions, make sure both internally and externally precautions are taken.

Since the very beginning of use of DNA technology, our scientists, we work closely with the investigators, the police officers. When we started with RFLP, we talked about precautions that should be taken. There weren't that many; however, at that time, scientists had contact with police officers, because we were attending scenes of crime with them when invited to such an extent that it became routine for all police officers to wear all in one protective disposal suits to scenes. This is very common -- this is common now in the U.K. At a scene of crime, officers attending scenes will wear protective clothing. I mean protective clothing in the form of a jumpsuit with a hood in addition to gloves.

When we moved to PCR technology, we also explained the need to be very careful about precautions that should be taken when recovering evidence. To such an extent that when we were lecturing to presurgeons, we were advising that perhaps masks should be worn to avoid the actual examiner contaminating the victim.

This is now routine as far as STR work is concerned. In the laboratory, more technicians are required to wear protective clothing in the form of lab coats. We have specific colored -- specifically colored lab coats for particular areas, so that you can see when people are not wearing the correct protective clothing. Both caps and masks are worn at all stages. So internally we are avoiding contamination; but externally, as we heard yesterday, I think Barry made a comment about flying DNA. I could guarantee you can't see any flying DNA, but if you swabbed the area you printed in, you will find lots of DNA, and that is what we are talking about. When it comes to police officers taking over items, laying items out, allowing other people to look at them, this is a no-no. That is where contamination occurs. This is sort of an education process that we are going through constantly, both internally and externally, to ensure that the evidence that is recovered is protected and is easily understood and interpreted.

Having gone to contamination, we come to the interpretation. With the current system, mixtures are generally quite easily interpreted, because there tends to be a major/minor imbalance in peak heights when you have a mixture in a normal case. In this sort of contact recovery, the DNA profiles show more of a balanced peak. So the mixture interpretation would be very much more complicated. We have to look at the -- the critical issues would be secondary transfer of the systems so we have to look at all these experiments that we are carrying out to carefully understand what it is we are detecting when we are swabbing contact traces.

Further work we are doing in partnership with the police is swabbing vehicles, and a lot of this experimentation is in support of that work. Source of samples we are looking at are various areas within the vehicle. The reason for this is that there are initiatives in the U.K. where we are trying to reduce minor crimes, and improve the detection rate, and a large number of examples of light crimes take and drive away cars, and full profiles are obtained from car samples, but they are dependent very much on the driver.

Profiles obtained from the area of vehicles, include the steering wheel, hand brake, gear stick, window button, lighter.

And generally the profiles reflect the use of the car. Where you have multiple users, you get multiple profiles. This is a better profile from a good donor, PJ, who I pointed out earlier on the graph, but at that time he was actually down to the low, medium level. The comment is that this is a good profile for him. This is the gear stick of the car that he drives. He is the sole driver, but he had a bad day when he gave the sample. Obviously, there are going to be differences. It will read DNA to varying degrees on different occasions.

A profile is recovered from one car here where it is the sole driver.

Here we have Sam, who was a very good donor, if you remember from the graph. It's a good profile. Interesting enough, this is from the car lighter in his car. Sometimes his partners were driving the car. So you are getting a low level of gene from someone else who is being a car user and using the car lighter.

The third profile is a mixture -- it's a minimum of three people. It is an owner and two other drivers, and we also think service engineering, because substituting the week before the car was swapped the car had been serviced. So to just show you how complicated the profiles can be.

Here we have the steering wheel of the driver is shaded here. Actually, this profile comes from the partner. So the person who was last driving the car hasn't left the strongest profile. The partner's profile is stronger.

Now when we are looking at fingerprints a lot of the time they are enhanced and the results of what can be obtained from DNA profiling after the techniques and experiences differ. There are reports of DNA recovered after all of these forms of treatment. Some you might question, but I think it will depend certainly on the case on high samples extracted, and that one involved extraction using phenyl chloroform, but there are reports of DNA profiles being obtained after all of these enhancement techniques.

Let me explain that others will allow 13 million profiles to be detected, but generally caution has to be employed when enhancing fingerprints if you want to take DNA afterwards. I am specifically quoting here of exams of fingerprints in body fluids, but this would also apply later when we are talking about furthering contact traces.

Another report relates to the use of UV, shortwave UV, with these samples being irradiated for 30 seconds would be a low DNA.

I just want to come back now to some other initiatives that the FSS is working on with the police. We have scientists working with the police forces currently, looking at scenes of crime, working alongside police officers. One of the things that we found early on was that there are so many scenes of crime, and it's very difficult for the police force to be deployed efficiently. There is quite a lot of work required in examining a scene to ensure that if clues present, they are found and they are recovered correctly.

We spent a lot of time educating the police in terms of training the police in terms of what to doat scenes, and here and now we are looking at consolidating that and considering other aspects besides body fluids. Some of the examples in the last month or so have revealed a case where there is a chin print on a window ledge where someone has broken into a home, and that will be examined; a forehead print on the windscreen of a car where a car has been stolen and subsequently smashed, but very often in these sort of cases, the driver of the car says he wasn't driving the car. If this DNA profile is obtained, it provides very strong evidence as to who was driving the car during that crash.

A palm print on the burglar alarm where the burglar alarm is being stopped at the building and fresh fingerprints are recovered. These are all part of the projects. As I say, it's an initiative looking at what can be recovered in the minor crimes it seems where the scientific eye is employed together with the police eye.

BARRY SCHECK: I am having a conceptual here. There is a palm print, let's say, on the burglar alarm, okay. How do you both preserve the palm print with enhancement techniques and also swab it to do the DNA?

In all those examples which you are giving us, which comes first? I mean if you swab the palm print to get the DNA, aren't you destroying the print, or do you just take a picture of the print? I don't understand.

LYNN FEREDAY: Well, I think in these examples, because the scientist is working alongside the police officer, the police officer would then indicate whether or not it were feasible, if there is enough information to do an examination or to enhance the print. It will be a joint decision as to what procedure would follow, and these are very early findings. Normally, if the palm print was found on a burglar alarm, there ought to be sufficient identification or insufficient. I would rather think this is an example where there is insufficient information for an identification. The sorts of things we are looking at here are insufficient for identification.

BARRY SCHECK: So what you are saying is it's an either or? You have to make a decision whether you want to do a DNA swabbing of a print versus an enhancement?

LYNN FEREDAY: You can do an enhancement, and then, well, yes, you are probably right. Yes. Yeah. But it's still early days. We haven't actually developed the protocols to satisfy all the answers here. At this stage, we are just looking and finding information which would otherwise be lost. That is the initiative.

There are other cases where SGM plus has been employed, again using 34 cycles at the application stage, and here evidence has been provided which the court can assess and careful interpretation. Generally, in those cases there will be no other information available.

As far as I'm concerned on the fingerprints exam, that is my presentation.

Is there any questions?

DOCTOR CROW: We might see if there are questions about this part of it and then ask her to go on with the other discussion. All right.

GEORGE CLARKE: Just a follow-up on what Barry asked. When the initial examination is made to determine if there is a print there, that is obviously done visually first? If it's a latent fingerprint that is otherwise not visible, I think what Barry was getting at is are there attempts to make that latent print visible first by any of those traditional means? And then is that the crossroads so to speak?

LYNN FEREDAY: Yes, that is the routine. Generally scientists are involved with enhancing fingerprints for the police. Then we could go on to the DNA profile. It would really depend on what we have got, and the sort of things that we are doing more routinely are enhancing latent prints in body fluids, because then you could go on and profile the body fluid, and that is enhancing the print on its own in the absence of any other body fluid. This is still in the experimentation stage.

BARRY SCHECK: I guess what I was confused about, just so we don't misunderstand the data that you gave us. At one point you describe that it still might be possible to get profiles even after certain enhancement techniques are used?

LYNN FEREDAY: That is right.

BARRY SCHECK: Okay. But when you were talking about taking it off steering wheels, doorknobs, everything else, you were talking about instances where there had been no enhancement, you just did an experiment where there is this, and then you swabbed?

LYNN FEREDAY: What we are talking about now is I have done that. There is nothing there to identify me with that contact. We are talking about me going up to the door to prove I have been in here. I have touched the handle of the door. It's that sort of area we are talking about. I haven't got to print. There is nothing identifiable there to say it was me.

BARRY SCHECK: All right.

LYNN FEREDAY: Another example. If I have been in this room, there is a glass which I have used. I haven't left a fingerprint. I have left some impressions there, some contact. You could swab that and prove that it was me, or you would find my DNA to show that I had been in the room.

BARRY SCHECK: But isn't there -- it's just stupidity on my part, but wouldn't there be some way -- I mean in a way what you are saying also is that I guess the terminology would be swipe, right, what you did there was a swipe? It's not in a sense a print, or latent print. I mean because you wouldn't be able to get characteristics for a print? No?

LYNN FEREDAY: The information I gave on latent prints was just for your benefit really to show that we can get DNA after making prints enhanced. The work we are talking about now is contact, and most of the contact than anything else. Okay. And so we are talking about potential use of recovering DNA from a fingerprint. If you were going to use that as a source of your DNA database sample, we have to look at a whole different protocol. It's the sort of thing I would envisage there is to ensure that you were taking the fingerprint from an individual and making sure that the DNA recovered was from that individual, you have to make sure the hands were washed to start with, and then that person could actually sort of do this sort of thing to ensure if it were a poor donor, you would ensure some DNA on the fingerprint. You could then use that to get the DNA profile for your database. We are a long way from that. That is what I'm talking about.

We are talking about several things. We are talking about the ability to recover information about an individual where it would appear that there is nothing there. You can't see anything. You can't identify anything. You can provide some DNA information, and the element of caution is on the interpretation, what does it mean.

BARRY SCHECK: Is it possible -- I don't know enough about fingerprints, frankly, but let's say that there is a glass where you can literally, you know, you can tell that there is a print there. It's not I guess alleles. It's not visible before enhancement.

Could you take a digital picture of that and then use that for fingerprint comparison and then swipe the print off the object to do the DNA?

LYNN FEREDAY: I don't know information in my gene code. I think you probably could, if the definition is adequate, but, no, that is not what people, what the police do in fingerprint work.

JOE BELLARO: I have lot of comments, questions and things, but I guess the place I would start is the history of PCR-based DNA really evolved around identifying a bodily fluid or actual visual stain, not just because we could, but because the probative value of linking that sample to somebody was much higher than the probative value of what fingerprints can often be, which is they can be deposited from a casual contact. So I have a lot of problems with the probative value of this approach; but then further on that, as far as the technological approach, in order for you to even derive value, if you accept that they can be probative, in order to even derive the value, you have to push the limitations of PCR extra cycles, which people that are familiar with PCR have always known the potential pitfalls of that, and the biggest pitfall is not just detecting background contamination in reagents or handling other things, but to potentially mistype a sample, because you are just starting with too little DNA. And as a PCR scientist, I always taught that that is the worst thing you can possibly do is to mistype something. It doesn't really matter how many safeguards you put in place to try to interpret things, if the potential is there to do it, I have never understood why to pursue that as a scientist first, but then as a criminalist second. I think you just have to let something go sometimes, because personally I think it compromises the integrity of the entire science. It sometimes pushes things to get what I would call miscellaneous samples sometimes.

So I would appreciate any comments from you on that, but I understand a lot of this work is early, but I don't understand.

CHRISTOPHER ASPEN: Can I make a comment to that, to kind of explain why she is here. Okay. And I said this at the beginning of the meeting yesterday. What I explained was the reason to look at this technology is not what you are talking about. Rather, what we wanted to have an idea of is the basics of the state of the research to see what affect this is going to have on our databasing issues, given the extent to which one of our considerations in taking DNA from arrestees, which we are still working on that for the Attorney General, one of the constitutional issues is the invasive nature of it. So what we are concerned with, as much as anything or more so than the issues that you are talking about and whether or not we are approaching PCR too far, that is not the point. What we are saying -- what we are talking about is more of a pristine circumstance where we are specifically looking at some sort of tacky substance, or whatever, so that we can possibly get to the point where under very clean, very pristine circumstances can we use this technology for databasing purposes and thereby affect the constitutional analysis.

So I think that what we have asked -- what we are looking at is very different than where you are coming from.

SARA COMLEY: Well, one of the interesting things that was brought up was that it takes 30 minutes after somebody has had their hand washed to get DNA from their fingerprint. That was particularly interesting.

Did you use any kind of sticky substances, adhesive substances?

LYNN FEREDAY: No, not at all. In response to the comments that were made about the integrity of the PCR technique, this is just a research stage. We have been looking at the copy numbers for DNA for sometime. We would not take this forward unless the matter was fully validated and safe to use. So we fully recognize the issues here as scientists. We are progressing carefully and cautiously. The routine work that is used in the database follows the validated number of cycles, but that doesn't mean to say that the PCR technique hasn't been pushed to its limits yet. This experimentation will show to what extent the cycles can be increased safely.

BARRY SCHECK: How about paper? Paper is -- you know, I mean everybody has always missed fingerprints. You have a better chance of getting a fingerprint off a piece of paper than you do off of a gun, a knife.

Did you do experimentation with paper?

LYNN FEREDAY: Not that I am aware of, but I wouldn't necessarily rule out the fact that you could get paper -- fingerprints off paper or easily again a smooth surface may be better.

BARRY SCHECK: I know that is true with fingerprints, but you didn't do paper?

LYNN FEREDAY: We haven't done any experiments yet as far as that. It's in the very early stages. The resources are limited, as you are aware, and that is basically the tone of what we have been able to achieve.

GEORGE CLARKE: Just so we are clear. On the instances, for instance, where a latent print would be identified and enhanced with min hydrin would you then go ahead and swab it for DNA following the enhancement?

LYNN FEREDAY: In the U.K., we would advise not to use min hydrin, to use other methods. The example there was quoted using phenyl choloroform extraction, and we wouldn't be able to do that routine.

GEORGE CLARKE: So in other words, min hydrin would act as a preventative of obtaining DNA information?

LYNN FEREDAY: Yes, it would destroy it, yes.

GEORGE CLARKE: As opposed to other methods?

LYNN FEREDAY: There are alternatives. Generally, when it comes to enhancing latent fingerprints, the Forensic Science Services is sought, and then we would offer the best recommendation appropriate to whatever the case circumstances required.

GEORGE CLARKE: I think to clarify one thing, because obviously a point could be made if there is a sufficient fingerprint why is DNA important, and I think -- I know Terry Gainer and others could probably verify this, that most latent fingerprints recovered at crime scenes are not sufficiently identifiable, or they don't have sufficient characteristics to identify any one. The smaller percentage are usable to identify people so that partial fingerprints become very important if DNA is obtainable from them.

LYNN FEREDAY: That is right.

DOCTOR CROW: I don't hear any further questions, so why don't you continue with your presentation.

LYNN FEREDAY: Okay. I thought perhaps it would be useful just to summarize the position in the U.K. Back in '93, there was a royal commission on the criminal justice system, and around at that time we had been using RFLP using two different approaches, the multilocus probe and the single locus probe. We had set up a database using this RFLP single locus probe to such an extent that we had between three and four thousand samples on the database. We had a number of hits from those cases. And the legislation at that time was strictly the use of DNA to only those cases where DNA had been used to secure a conviction. So only those samples could be handled in the database.

This policy was quite frustrating from an investigative point of view, and at times we were literally policing the laws, because we weren't able to do more than just use those DNA samples from individuals where DNA had been used to secure a conviction on our database. Nevertheless, we had to achieve 80 hits. So there was considerable lobbying to help the legislation change and four agencies were involved in that change: ourselves, the police and theoffice worked together to secure a new set of legislation. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act came in in 1994. That act stated that any individual, who had been convicted, cautioned or suspected of committing a recordable offense could have a nonintimate sample taken, and that sample could be stored in the database. Those samples would be stored indefinitely pending a change in DNA technology.

So our database, which is now well over 500,000 and with over 56,000 crime stains is based on this legislation. The way in which the database works is that we have casework in laboratories where routine investigative cases goes into. We also have teams where undetected fences come in -- what do you call them. There is no suspect in the case. Then we also have a team where the criminal justice examples, the database examples come in. We have three sources of sorts coming into the database. These are all resourced independently all within the FSS.

The whole basis of the database is that just based on an investigative tool. So the samples taken from individuals, who committed a recordable offense, can only be held if they have been convicted. So all of our 500-odd samples on the database are from convicted individuals. If people are acquitted, the samples come up.

When we set up the database, we had wanted it to be linked to the Peace National Computer, but unfortunately we haven't achieved that as yet. The data on the Peace National Computer would hold the information about the individuals being convicted, and there would be a page there to show that the DNA sample has been taken, and whether or not it has it on the database.

Now, I don't know half the details, but I know there are categories of offenses in the U.K. where someone has not reoffended in those categories after a certain amount of time, they will come off the Peace National Computer, and that once, although that doesn't apply to the database, once that information is had on the Peace National Computer, you would likewise apply it to the database. But other than that, all our database samples are held. If somebody is convicted, they are held indefinitely.

One of the other issues is we registered through the Data Protection Act so that in terms of what we can do with it, the data, it's all registered. Nowhere in the legislation are we allowed to use the database samples for search purposes, and we can share the data, but the sharing of the data is restricted in terms of what is recorded and registered through the Data Protection Act.

Okay. I will take any questions.

AARON KENNARD: A question. You articulate that you can share the data. Share what data with who?

LYNN FEREDAY: With other countries. We have registered for that. In the U.K., our database has been shared, the information and the way in which we set the database is being shared. Throughout Europe, we are pushing forward in terms of sharing data simply because everybody is so much closer, and criminals don't respect boundaries. We have agreed through the European National Defense Science Institute that we will share seven loci, so that if an individual needs tobe shared across countries, the seven loci will be the loci sharing information. Those seven loci are contained within the loci used in the USA, so it is information for us to share with you as well.

The other interesting feature, as far as DNA is concerned, is the very first case in which DNA was used actually involved in a mass screen. In the U.K., we are not supposed to call it a mass screen anymore. They are intelligence-led screens.

(Laughter.)

LYNN FEREDAY: Anyway, this first case involved the murder of two young girls, and it started out with the police thought that they were connected, but they didn't have information to actually demonstrate to the police the murders were connected. Then an individual came forward and volunteered that he had murdered one of the girls. He admitted he committed this crime, but he hadn't committed the other one. So at that time, because the DNA technology was patented, Professor Jeffries did the analysis and showed the cases were connected, but the person who was volunteering that he committed one of the murders was actually innocent, and it moved on in that there was some information, scientific information, in the form of conventional grouping, and the mass screening involved screening out using conventional grouping, then following it up with the RFLP multilocus probe technique. The person who committed the crime was actually identified, but the interesting twist is that he wasn't actually identified through the mass screen. He was identified, because one night he was at a pub, and he was boasting to his mate that he got somebody else to give a sample for him, and a man overheard this and reported it, and he was apprehended that way.

So there are two issues there. One mass screen was not set up quite as it should have been. So there have been improvements. The screens now are a routine method of policing. They save several months of police resources, and the case that I was talking to is the suspect of the perpetrator was a pitchfork, and I am sure many of you have heard of him or the case.

Coming back to the mass screens. This is a major way of saving police resources. What happens is that once a crime is being investigated, and DNA evidence has been found, police immediately do a scoping of who or what area they have to screen. They decide on a select area, and they then look for volunteers in that area. One of the first cases involved a murder of the young girl using STRs. Now it involved the murder of a young girl where a breast swab was taken of saliva from a bite mark on his breast, and a very limited amount of information was found from the STR profile. There was great deal of media coverage. Through the screen the perpetrator of the crime was actually identified. In addition to the DNA evidence, it was an interesting bite mark, which also played a major part in the conviction of that individual.

The interesting thing about the mass screens is that although there seem to be some unease about continuing with them here, people are volunteering constantly. They volunteer for a reason, because they know they are innocent. They have nothing to fear, and we will end up with crime detection.

The volunteering is amazing in that one case the police generally quote that the detection using mass screens has solved about 100 or 200 samples, in that order. In one case, the methods of samples being analyzed was much higher than that, and it had spanned the RFLP and STR technology. The police went to one home, and they were coming to collect the DNA profile from the son in the family. Another volunteered the other son, who according to her view was in the area at the time. He actually was the guilty person. That just shows you to what extent people are prepared to go along with volunteering for the screens. DNA has eliminated far more people than it has convicted or incriminated.

At the moment should I give you some data?

PARTICIPANT: Sure.

LYNN FEREDAY: In terms of hard facts, we have 547,000 samples on the database, 56,000 crime stains, and hits of suspects to crime stain are 48,000; on crime to crime, over 7,000. And promised screens, we have received more than 40,000, and the majority of those are eliminating people.

GEORGE CLARKE: Do those go into the database?

LYNN FEREDAY: Oh, sorry. I should have mentioned that. That is the volunteer samples. They are held separately. The DNA database is an investigative tool. The information is provided to police to further investigate the case. The samples from mass screens, or the intelligence-led screens, are held separately and never go on the database.

BARRY SCHECK: When are they destroyed?

LYNN FEREDAY: I think after -- again, that is covered in the legislation. That is generally after that screen is completed.

DOCTOR CROW: One question. What use is made of the data for the person who his sample is taken and is later acquitted?

LYNN FEREDAY: None at all. The sample that is given is just purely for the database purposes. There is no provision or search work on those samples. Those samples are held in a secure way, and there is no access to them for anything other than grading or to rectify a problem in the analysis stage.

MICHAEL SMITH: But is it included in the database, the profile, until the acquittal?

LYNN FEREDAY: Yes.

MICHAEL SMITH: So during that period between arrest and acquittal, it can be searched, right?

LYNN FEREDAY: The legislation states that the sample is taken from the person whose suspected or for the court of defense, and the information can be held and used for speculative searches until that person is convicted. Once that person is convicted, that information has to go. So that means if we had a hit, or match on someone, and that person was acquitted, we would have to check that that acquittal time was after the match, and that happens routinely.

The other thing I wanted to say was the samples are for database purposes only so that if the police are told there is a connection to this individual, in order to take the case to court, if they so wish, another has to be taken and analyzed, and the casework continues, and that is the evidential sample.

AARON KENNARD: Ms. Fereday, in regards to your gathering of your statistics have you -- can you articulate the difference between a random hit or a hit that was generated from police; and in regard to this, I am suggesting that if I send you a case with a suspect, his DNA, and the crime scene indicates some other things, is this included in your hit, or are you talking just hits that are random?

LYNN FEREDAY: What you are referring to there is a suspect and a scene stain. That would go to the casework team. That is in general regarded as a hit, okay, because if you sent me an undetected case, that would go in and be compared with that hit, then that is a general hit. Where you know who it is, that is not regarded as a hit.

AARON KENNARD: That is not regarded as a hit.

LYNN FEREDAY: We have a number of what we call cohits, and the one that springs to mind is someone was stopped for drinking and driving. His sample was taken, and he matched a rape case. Those are the sorts of cases that are coming up daily. It's quite amazing.

AARON KENNARD: They may send you four of five different samples from the crime scene, and they all may match, they all may hit, but it wouldn't be counted in your statistics as one hit?

LYNN FEREDAY: Generally, we try to avoid duplicating samples from one scene if it was obviously from one individual.

KATHYRN TURMAN: Just to make sure I understand this, when you do a mass intelligence screening, you do not compare the people that you collected and marked to anything but that one crime scene? You said the stain you don't, while you are at it, run them through the entire unsolved cases?

LYNN FEREDAY: The whole point about the mass screenings is that investigating that one major crime, compare it to that crime and separate from the main database.

MICHAEL SMITH: I'm trying to think about, given your testimony, about the extent of an eagerness of volunteering, why is it thought necessary to destroy the volunteered after the particular incident is closed?

LYNN FEREDAY: Simply for the reason that that is why they are volunteering. They are volunteering for that particular crime.

MICHAEL SMITH: So they are innocent of that crime?

LYNN FEREDAY: They know it is not going on the database. It is for that particular crime. I can't remember -- I'm pretty sure this is in the legislation as well.

JIM WOOLEY: How often do you solve these cases through a hit through a mass screen?

How often does that come up?

LYNN FEREDAY: I am not a hundred percent sure of the figures. They could be out of date, but I think we have run like 74 screens and over half have been through the screen.

JIM WOOLEY: But in these screens, how do you get 100 percent or a high number of participants in these screens? I mean is there some mechanism by which --

LYNN FEREDAY: Well, the one I described earlier was one where there was a lot of media coverage.

JIM WOOLEY: Right.

LYNN FEREDAY: Either on television or on radio. I am not sure that is what happens generally, because I haven't actually lived in the vicinity where a screen has been run, but I assume that is the methodology that people are persuaded. The other thing is people want crimes to be detected. Certainly, the nature of the crimes that we are talking about, they are usually very bad rapes or horrific murders, and there is public initiative actually to support, but the whole point is what you are going to keep coming back to is DNA eliminates, and that is the basis on which legislation moved. The potential is there to be realized and, you know, that is why our legislation has changed the way it was.

JIM WOOLEY: What is the legislation relating to mass screenings?

Is there legislation about that, or is this just all citizens in different communities and --

LYNN FEREDAY: It's a volunteer basis only. I don't -- I can't remember, but I don't remember whether it is in the legislation actually. It's based on a voluntary basis only and on condition that it is not stored on the database, and it's destroyed when the period is defined. I think it's after the investigation.

BARRY SCHECK: I think, if I recall the way that the legislation was drafted is that they had a definition of what was quote/unquote an intimate sample, that you couldn't take -- you couldn't take blood. You couldn't. It was an intimate sample. So they redefined intimate sample to include sample when you are arrested. If they took blood from you then that is not an intimate sample, but the screens would still -- is operating on the principle of informed consent.

LYNN FEREDAY: Right. Should I just take you back a moment. In the early legislation, we did have difficulty as to what an intimate and nonintimate sample was. It's in the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. They set out -- the basis of it was not to mention DNA at all and to combine DNA and fingerprints. So the whole point is fingerprints or any other sample could be used and taken and put on a database and used as an investigative tool. Then the definitions in terms of what constitutes an intimate sample, what constitutes a nonintimate sample was then clearly defined, and a nonintimate sample is a scrape from the inside of the mouth, like a scrape, a pulled hair sample, a swab from -- I can't remember the -- there are a few other incidentals, but those are really the ones that really apply to us just now; and the intimate samples, the blood sample or swab from a body orifice other than the mouth basically, I think that is basically what the wording is.

The whole rationale behind that was that it was felt that a buccal scrape or a pulled hair sample would be noninvasive, and that then would also save police resources, because prior to that, a police surgeon would be required to take a blood sample, and that became very expensive, certainly in the early screens, because only blood was the option for the analysis system.

So this moved us into the mass screening period where a buccal scrape could be taken. The individual himself could actually take it, if they really wanted to, but generally a police officer would take a sample. So you are looking at resource savings the whole time. Also considering what are the implications, it is less invasive; at the outset, consideration to civil liberties, or liberty group in U.K. where issues were discussed with them, and they supported the database. They found that it was okay. It was a less intrusive way of policing and generally has been.

JUSTICE REINSTEIN: So having listened to everything that we discussed this morning, I want to know what your reaction is to that, based upon your experience, because I mean you seem to be light years ahead of us.

LYNN FEREDAY: I feel very uncomfortable sitting here this morning, because we have been there. We have been through most of these things, but the timetable was different. When we had our discussions, we had just gone through two types of RFLP, and we had gone through -- we were on the second PCR, and we hadn't moved into the STR at that time. We knew there would be changes, and what I think the talk and your experiences in DNA should tell you that things move quite slowly in DNA, and then suddenly they go 90 miles an hour, and you cannot budget for no upgrading and technology. I think it's very dangerous not to.

The reason why our samples are stored indefinitely is simply for upgrading and the technology changes. How that will be funded, when and if that happens, is another matter, but the option is there.

The low point about it is you have then to put in place secure measures to ensure that those samples are held for the purpose in which they were taken and no one other purpose at all.

TERRY HILLARD: Miss Fereday, can you expound on the security of the samples. You are saying you don't destroy them. So tell us about the security, how you go about ensuring that they don't get in the wrong hands.

LYNN FEREDAY: Well, they are held at a -- without giving too much away, they are held at a site where only the access is controlled and only those people within the access who need to access them achieve that.

TERRY HILLARD: When you say controlled, controlled by who?

LYNN FEREDAY: The FSS, government persons. We are an agency in the government so you could say they are personnel.

The role of the FSS has been not only -- I better start again. The data on the database is actually owned by the police forces. The role of the FSS is to run the database and to act as a custodian to the database. As part of that custodian responsibility, we have to ensure the sample is stored, integrity of the sample is achieved, and legislation is followed and adhered to. So we have to enroll them. We have a role as a supplier of the database, and also to act as a custodian. One of my functions is to oversee the custodian role so we make sure that there is no way that any unauthorized personnel can have access to the data.

DOCTOR CROW: Okay. Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

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