Lab-in-Van proves worth

Lincolnshire Police has been testing the lab-in-a-van for around three weeks and trials of the Forensic Response Vehicle (FRV), developed by the Forensic Science Service to speed up DNA testing, have dramatically cut the time taken to analyse crime scene DNA.

Dr Mick Carling, Head of Scientific Support for Lincolnshire Police, which is trialling the vehicle says that under normal circumstances, DNA test results for crime scenes take at least two days. “With this new vehicle, results can be turned around in less than ten hours which provides the potential for offenders to be identified and arrested in exceptionally quick time.”

In one case DNA taken from a crime scene was matched to an offender just 28 hours after a burglary was reported. On another occasion a man was arrested just 40 minutes after a DNA match was passed to operational officers.

David Reardon, FSS business lead for the FRV, described the early results with burglaries and auto-crime as ‘very encouraging’. Dr Carling said that for the first two weeks of the trial, results from the mobile laboratory were checked against results from parallel processing at the FSS’s London laboratory.

The vehicle will be used to pilot other types of crime, including violent crimes such as murder and rape and also to provide other services from the vehicle, such as mobile phone, footwear and fingerprint intelligence.

Chief Constable of Lincolnshire, Tony Lake, who is ACPO lead on Forensics says the potential for this kind of miniaturised equipment is enormous. “Although the scale of the trial we were able to undertake was small, it offers a fundamentally different way of delivering DNA and other forensic services which in turn will help us to continue to significantly reduce crime by catching offenders quickly,” he said.

“Local DNA analysis from miniaturised equipment is potentially far more effective than analysis at large remote laboratories for higher volume test methods.”