Forensic Science in the United Kingdom

In April 2021, England's Home Office Forensic Science Regulator, Mike Silverman, reminded the public in a London Telegraph interview by Sarah Knapton that crime scene fingerprint identification is not as reliable as once believed. For one thing, while it is assumed that no two fingerprints are alike, fingerprints among family members can be quite similar. Moreover, partial or smudged crime scene latents can be easily misidentified. Over the years in the United Kingdom, human error has led to numerous false positive identifications that resulted in the convictions of innocent defendants. According to Mr. Silverman, a study conducted at Southhampton University found that two thirds of fingerprint experts who were given the same sets of known and questioned prints twice came to different conclusions on the second examination. In 2010, the United Kingdom's National Forensic Service, due to budget cuts, was shut down. Although London's Metropolitan Police Department recently established a new crime laboratory, most of the forensic work performed in the UK is handled by private laboratories. According to Mr. Silverman, because of budget cuts and unreliable performance, forensic science in the United Kingdom has not served the interest of criminal justice.