Nowhere to Hide

Geoff Garvey records the criminal cases that have been solved by the development of forensic profiling and have led to the prosecution of some of the UK's most dangerous criminals. Fibres and DNA evidence proved crucial in the investigation of M25 rapist, Antoni Imiela, in the biggest linked police inquiry since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper 20 years ago. Imiela was caught and convicted of seven rapes, kidnap and indecent assault on victims as young as ten - he was given life. When the mutilated body of 90 year old Mabel Leyshon was found laid out in her home in a ritualised fashion, which included the removal of her heart, police were left with only a partial footprint to go on. But, when they looked closely at the saucepan that was used to collected the victim's blood, they found the presence of a lip mark on its edge. This macabre finding gave the police an insight into a motive that was ultimately linked with vampirism. Matthew Hardman was later arrested and sentenced to life. Amazingly from thousands of individual pieces of evidence collected from crime scenes, the most significant can be as small as a single dog hair or as random as a flake of paint. In the case of Sarah Payne, 500 items were submitted for analysis and over 20 forensic experts were employed during the enquiry in the fields of entomology, pathology, geology, archaeology, environmental profiling and oil/lubricant analysis - fibres of clothing and one single human hair led to the conviction of her killer Roy Whiting.