Aggregated News
The major blunder that sent detectives on the Gareth Williams inquiry down a blind alley for more than a year is the second embarrassment admitted this month by Britain's biggest private forensic science laboratory.
The latest error – described as "astonishing" and which led to a public apology from the company to the Williams family – has raised questions over systems and practices at LGC, which handles half a million samples a year.
Critics called for a public inquiry to try to discover if private providers were fit for purpose following the final closure today of the state-run Forensic Science Service. "This simply should not happen," said Professor Peter Gill, a founding father of DNA profiling in the 1980s. "Surely there is sufficient evidence to open a public inquiry because we are now getting regular reports of widespread system failure."
The mistake followed the discovery of a partial trace of a second person's DNA on the hand of Mr Williams. To rule out possible contamination from any of the investigators at the scene, those details were loaded manually onto a...
The latest error – described as "astonishing" and which led to a public apology from the company to the Williams family – has raised questions over systems and practices at LGC, which handles half a million samples a year.
Critics called for a public inquiry to try to discover if private providers were fit for purpose following the final closure today of the state-run Forensic Science Service. "This simply should not happen," said Professor Peter Gill, a founding father of DNA profiling in the 1980s. "Surely there is sufficient evidence to open a public inquiry because we are now getting regular reports of widespread system failure."
The mistake followed the discovery of a partial trace of a second person's DNA on the hand of Mr Williams. To rule out possible contamination from any of the investigators at the scene, those details were loaded manually onto a...