Dundee is to be home to a £10 million research centre that ensures criminals of the future do not escape justice.
Forensic science is vital in helping to catch offenders but is said to be “in crisis”, with a range of research gaps in important areas such as fingerprinting.
To ensure it retains its critical role in the criminal justice system, a new Research Centre for Forensic Science will be established at Dundee University.
It will be led by Professor Sue Black, celebrated director of the university’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification.
Advances in forensic science have played an important role in bringing to justice criminals such as World’s End serial murderer Angus Sinclair, and enabling the police to revisit a host of cold cases worldwide.
They help investigators understand how blood-spatter patterns occur, identify evidence such as drugs and trace materials, and determine the identity of unknown suspects.
There remain too many flaws, however, and so the funding from the Leverhulme Trust one of the biggest supporters of research in the UK aims to stimulate ground-breaking study in the field.
Prof Black told The Courier her team had taken on a huge and hugely important challenge that could help change the face of police investigations and courtrooms across Europe.
“Forensic science is a highly valued component of the criminal justice system but it is widely recognised to be in crisis,” said Prof Black.
“It has been dreadfully underfunded over the past 30 years, and we are seeing that when evidence types are introduced to our courts they do not stand up.
“The case of former police officer Shirley McKie led to questions over the reliability of fingerprint evidence and, rather than look at how to improve this, we took a step back and downgraded the importance of that evidence.
“That has happened to all the areas of forensic science, with the exception of DNA evidence which has been fully funded. As a consequence it has revolutionised the courtroom.
“Imagine what could happen if we could bring this level of funding and reliability to all areas of forensic science.
“We must get this right to ensure that there are no wrongful convictions, no miscarriages of justice, and to ensure that we put the right people on the right side of the prison bars.”
The funding from the Leverhulme Trust will support the centre’s work over the next 10 years.
Prof Black said: “The research has not been easy to fund. It is new, blue-sky thinking and so it is just amazing to have the opportunity to make a real difference. I want to fix things.
“We don’t know if we will succeed but we are unquestionably leading this effort to revolutionise forensic science from Dundee for Dundee, for Scotland and for Europe.”