Scientific Detectives

A system of dealing with forensic identifications has seen detection rates multiply as greater use is made of forensics intelligence to arrest and interview suspects. Police Professional visited West Yorkshire to take a closer look at Operation Converter.

West Yorkshire Police has made a considerable commitment to turning around low detection rates from forensic identifications by eliminating poor interviews and placing a focus on getting offenders to admit all previous offences when in custody. Operation Converter has been credited with improving detection rates from forensic hits from 57 per cent to 149 per cent – the highest conversion rate in the country. Now, 55 per cent of all priority crime detected by West Yorkshire is a result of Operation Converter.

Following a fall in offences taken into consideration (TICs) nationally after prison write-offs were banned, there has been a lack of focus on asking offenders to admit further crimes while in custody. Solicitors advise suspects not to answer questions about other offences and time pressures have meant the sort of intelligence gathering on similar offences has not always been possible before a suspect is released from custody.

Superintendent Andy Battle, Head of Scientific Support at West Yorkshire Police, believes Operation Converter is an opportunity to put that right. “This is a golden opportunity to detect all crimes a suspect has committed, not just the offence for which the arrest was made.”

Martin O’Farrell is the Detective Sergeant responsible for the management of the Forensic Intelligence Unit in Wakefield that is at the centre of the Operation. The Unit processes 30 intelligence packages every day, distributing them to the force’s 10 BCUs. Giving the identifications to BCU Converter teams with not just the details of a suspect, but including a host of other intelligence information as well, provides the ammunition to tackle offenders in a much more professional way.

Crucial to the success of the project is the dedication of the teams on the BCU, said DS O’Farrell. Driving the performance has to be the force corporate approach: “It is no good one division doing it and not others. It wouldn’t get done.”

Even in West Yorkshire, where Converter features high on command team discussions, there is a range of performance across BCUs. Between April to December 2005, the average percentage of detections from forensic hits was 149 per cent, but the range between divisions was from 101 per cent to 235 per cent.

DS O’Farrell said the constant flow of figures to each division’s command team drives performance, and those that put the highest commitment achieve the highest results. Those Forensic Intelligence packages provide additional information gleaned by a team of analysts armed with forensic information including footwear marks left at scenes and recorded crime information that can link a suspect to other offences through modus operandi, location shoemarks etc. They also give a history of forensic identification which DS O’Farrell says officers are finding highly valuable; if an offender has previously been identified by forensics, how he behaved provides an indication as to what an officer can expect when he deals with the suspect again.

In his office in Wakefield, one such intelligence package crossed his desk as we spoke. The package had been sent to the Converter team containing a history of offences committed by the offender, plus a list of similar offences in the same areas either at the same time of day or using the same MO.

“This one is from March 27, and we identified this suspects’ fingerprints on a car ‘taken without consent’. There is a result already and he has admitted the offence plus had 33 other vehicle offences in and around Wakefield TIC’ed. Typical of the work we see,” said DS O’Farrell.

Given the move by forces to speedier delivery of identifications, is there a risk that creating an intelligence package will delays the process? “The time spent on each