Taking analysis to court

The tragic death of 23 cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay led to one of the most complex investigations Lancashire Police had ever taken into the courtroom. Analysis not only aided the outcome of the investigation, but was uniquely presented in a courtroom to aid the prosecution of an illegally operating gangmaster Lin Liang Ren. Damian Small reports.

Detective Superintendent Michael Gradwell was the senior investigating officer on the case – Operation Lund – and highlighted some of the immediate problems investigating officers faced.

“The deceased were all illegal immigrants, some of whom had used false identities and some who were unknown to the authorities. The main witnesses were also illegal immigrants and were therefore scared of British and Chinese authorities, the cockling bosses and the Snakehead gangs that had secured their route into the country.

“We were dealing with a criminal environment and found that witnesses were threatened and told to give false accounts and evidence was destroyed. Some of the secondary scenes were numerous houses of multi-occupancy in Liverpool, fishing company premises and haulage contractors.”

Furthermore, investigators were met with problems of a language barrier and a general lack of knowledge with a regard to the cockling industry and linked processes.

Understandably, there was a huge amount of investigative material gathered from multi-agency intelligence databases, the product of searches, financial orders, telephony enquiries and other material such as the victims’ notebooks and diaries. Det Supt Gradwell said: “Nine months into the operation, it became apparent that a full-time dedicated analyst was needed.”

Kate Clarkson is an analyst for Lancashire’s Major Investigation Team and was tasked with the job of analysing the wealth of evidence to verify any relationships between the top tier of gangmasters and the victims, which were to be pivotal to the success of the operation.

Ms Clarkson said: “Telephone attribution was very important linking certain phones to certain individuals. A number of phones were being used and being passed between suspects who were denying knowledge of them.”

The Holmes system records that 5,152 telephones/SIM cards were relevant to the investigation and in excess of 20,000 telephone calls were analysed for relevant days over a six-month period.

Det Supt Gradwell said: “The analytical work that was required to attribute telephones to particular individuals, create association charts and provide evidential chronology was of an exemplary standard. There were 2,006 actions relating to telephony evidence.”

The telephony analysis corroborated with other evidence and provided links between witnesses, suspects and everybody else involved. Ms Clarkson added: “It allowed us to see the relationship between all involved over a long period of time, not just on the day of the incident.”

It also enabled the investigating team to detect which individuals were operating at the top end of the criminal hierarchy. It revealed that calls filtering down the hierarchy were eventually made to workers, showing the times of when they were working on the beaches.

Overall, telephony attribution helped expose the culture of blame and denial that was experienced when interviewing the various witnesses. Ms Clarkson said it revealed a clear picture showing the sequence of calls that were made during and after the incident. “The analysis allowed us to see who was talking to who, including the survivors of the incident.”

Telephony analysis was used in conjunction with sequence of events analysis. Ms Clarkson said: “We looked at the initial linking between the English and the Chinese, and where the English bosses arranged to have cockle samples sent to companies, which the Chinese had picked from the bay. This, with previous incidents, outlined to us how long the Chinese pickers had been out on the beach for and when the samples had been picked.”

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