Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Act 2000 - NSW Ombudsman - NSW ...

Case Study 71
An unknown offender broke into a house through the window, and stole a briefcase, handbag, keys and the
owner’s car. Police recovered the car the following afternoon, and found a partially eaten sausage roll inside.
DAL obtained a profile from the sausage roll and uploaded it onto the DNA database. It matched the profile
of a person who was already on the database. Police arrested the suspect, conducted a further forensic
procedure to confirm the cold link, and commenced proceedings against the suspect. 956
Cold links can also be made between crime scenes, where the same unknown offender has left DNA at more than
one crime scene. Linking crime scenes is of significant intelligence value to investigating police officers.
Case Study 72
In June 2002, an unknown offender broke through the roof of a shopping centre, cutting both the telephone
and alarm wires. The offender broke into a fruit and vegetable shop, and stole cash from the safe and cash
registers. The offender also attempted to steal two ATMs, using the fruit shop’s forklift to remove several
pallets of fruit and vegetables, to make room for a stolen vehicle to be driven through the shop to the ATM.
Investigating police attended the crime scene, and took swabs from the controls of the forklift. DAL derived a
DNA profile from the swabs and uploaded it onto the DNA database. It did not match anyone already on the
database.
A year later, police were investigating a break, enter and steal offence at a warehouse. Again, the unknown
offender had cut the alarm wires, and had used the company’s forklift to move the stolen goods, this time
fishing reels. Investigating police officers took swabs from the forklift, and the DNA profile was put on the DNA
database. It matched the DNA profile obtained from the fruit shop forklift, but again, did not match any of the
profiles obtained from person samples on the database.
18 months later, police arrested and charged a suspect in relation to various property offences. While in
custody, police took a DNA sample from the suspect by buccal swab. DAL uploaded the suspect’s profile
onto the database and found that it matched the DNA profile obtained from the forklifts used in the fruit shop
and warehouse offences. Police made further inquiries and neither the fruit shop nor the warehouse were able
to explain why the suspect’s DNA was found at the controls of their respective forklifts. Investigating police
subsequently interviewed the suspect about his involvement in those two offences too.
We asked DAL to provide the number of cold links, by offence category, made during the review period. DAL advised
that cold links were made in 4,207 cases during the review period. The majority of these were for high volume
offences, including break, enter and steal (2,884), stolen motor vehicle (585), steal from vehicle (245) and malicious
damage (47). However, a significant number were for serious offences, including murder and manslaughter (13),
sexual assault (68), robbery (267) and assault (25). These results are extremely good – they demonstrate that DNA
analysis is providing further evidence in unsolved crimes, including the most serious types of offences.
DAL also provided information about the number of people who have been linked to crime scenes:
• 1,405 people were linked to only one crime scene
• 705 people were linked to between 2 and 4 crime scenes
• 124 people were linked to between 5 and 10 crime scenes
• 17 people were linked to more than 10 crime scenes, including one person who was linked to 25 different
crime scenes.
In total, 2,251 people have been linked to crime scenes through cold links. These results show that DNA analysis is
useful in identifying patterns of possible repeated criminal conduct.
We sought to analyse the number of cold links made each month, to see whether there were any trends in the number
or types of cold links made since the Act commenced, but DAL was unable to provide this information. However, we
understand that the number of cold links increased rapidly as large numbers of convicted offenders had their DNA
NSW Ombudsman
DNA sampling and other forensic procedures conducted on suspects and volunteers under the Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Act 2000 195