By Brian Smith and Alan Wilson

TAYSIDE POLICE spent £1 million on specialist forensic services in the Templeton Woods case, it was suggested at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.

The case was re-opened in 2004, nearly quarter of a century after Elizabeth McCabe’s body was found in the woods, when police began to send evidence they held for testing using the technique of obtaining a DNA profile from minute amounts of biological material.

Defence counsel Mark Stewart QC asked Forensic Science Services (FSS) consultant Dr Jonathan Whitaker how much it would cost for an individual item to be processed at his laboratories in Yorkshire.

Dr Whitaker said there was an hourly charge which could vary and was dependent on what was required for an analysis to be carried out.

He said that a “good average” for the examination of each individual site would be £1200 an hour.

Mr Stewart said, “We may hear an opinion was given within Tayside Police, that to have a skirt examined may cost around £70,000.”

Dr Whitaker replied, “That depends what was done to the skirt.”

Mr Stewart asked whether or not, if the skirt was cut into individual sections and each section analysed, it could mount up to £70,000.

Dr Whitaker replied, “Yes.”

Mr Stewart asked if the witness knew, in relation to this inquiry, how many items had been sent to FSS for examination. When the witness said he could not recall, Mr Stewart suggested it was 49.

Dr Whitaker replied, “I would accept that.”

Mr Stewart then suggested that Tayside Police expenditure with FSS had reached the sum of £1 million.

Dr Whitaker replied, “I have no idea.”

Mr Stewart then asked, “Two people can differ as to whether there is a single or mixed profile?”

He agreed that “human interpretation” was used in the analysis of DNA to determine the profiles.

Cross-examining him, Mr Stewart moved on to the potential for DNA samples becoming contaminated either in the laboratory or prior to that testing.

Dr Whitaker explained that when dealing with low copy DNA, two tests were carried out as there is the possibility of some contamination taking place in the laboratory, for example from a test tube or from an operator sneezing.

The two tests were designed to control aspects of any contamination in the lab.

Mr Stewart then said, “Another situation is that you can have two tests where you can have test A giving one result and test B giving a different result,” which he said was not caused by the test tube or sneezing.

This he termed “allelic drop-in” which was the introduction of an additional DNA band into a profile.

Mr Stewart explained that if one were speaking about his own DNA profile, in one test there would be 15 bands and in the second test there might be 16.

The witness agreed.

Dr Whitaker also agreed that the opposite can happen, which Mr Stewart termed, “allelic drop-out.”

Mr Stewart then said if scientists were dealing with a mixed DNA profile, drop-in and out might become more important to which Dr Whitaker replied, “Yes.”

Mr Stewart asked, “If you have two samples, and they are not complete profiles, then it becomes even more important? If you have 10 bands forming a mixed sample then you run the test again you only get eight?”

Dr Whitaker replied, “Yes, that can happen. I’m happy to go along with that.”

The scientist agreed that at the time the DNA samples were taken from Elizabeth McCabe’s clothing there were not international laid down standards for the rules and guidelines involved in testing DNA, telling the court that the standards were actually introduced earlier this year.

On the subject of low copy DNA, Mr Stewart asked Dr Whitaker if the tests were on only five or six sites out of a possible 22, due to the degradation through time of the longer bands of DNA, there would be a greater chance that no match would be found in the untested sites.

Dr Whitaker replied, “Yes,” but added that there was also more possibility of a match being found.

Mr Stewart said if one band of the DNA is statistically minuscule evidencially, given that normally six to eight bands would expect to be detected on people sitting next to each other, if there is one band saying there is no match, it is “critical, massive, complete and absolute.”

Dr Whitaker replied, “Yes.”

Mr Stewart continued, “So if there are six, ten, fourteen, eighteen bands, not developed, there are that number of opportunities for that person to be excluded.”

The witness replied, “Yes, or to be further included.”

Mr Stewart suggested, “DNA can persist in a form that can be detected for an indeterminate period.”

Dr Whitaker said that it could, dependent on conditions.

Counsel observed that in the case before the court, Dr Whitaker had been looking at material, and the possibility of transfer, from 1980—24 to 25 years before the date he examined it.

“It may be DNA that has been deposited before, after, or on that date, there is no way to tell.”

Dr Whitaker agreed, explaining, “Not from looking at the profile.”

He also accepted that the method of gathering, handling and storage of evidence could have an impact on his analysis.

He said he had around 10 discussions with Tayside Police about the items that were to be sent to his laboratories, but those issues had not been discussed in any detail.

He agreed his laboratories kept computer records of each item they dealt with, who had handled and where it had been in each stage of the process, using a bar code system to keep track of it.

He also accepted that such a record, if it existed, would be valuable in dealing with the evidence in the Templeton Woods case.

Mr Stewart then detailed the conditions jurors have heard about—how the items were found in a storage room in police headquarters in Dundee, some in burst bags, some in open bags and all held in boxes, irrespective of whether they originated from the victim or the accused.

Mr Stewart reminded the court of the assessment of an officer detailed to examine and catalogue the evidence, that “No court in the land could accept their integrity,” given what he found.

The witness agreed that it was theoretically possible for DNA to be transferred from one item to another in such conditions and agreed with counsel’s view that the condition of evidence in this case posed, “a real, not a theoretical problem.”

The trial continues.