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Article: Leading police expert questions the reliability of fingerprint evidence
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- October 23, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2000 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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THE INFALLIBILITY of fingerprint evidence has been questioned by
Britain's leading police expert, who is calling for an overhaul of
the system to prevent people being jailed for crimes they did not
commit.
The national head of police fingerprint training warned that
"corners were being cut" and he feared that subjective assessments of
prints were not being thoroughly and independently checked before
being sent to court.
Geoffrey Sheppard, who is based at the National Training Centre
for Scientific Support to Crime Investigation in Durham, said the
fingerprint system was not infallible "because we are all human
beings and we all make mistakes".
Mr Sheppard's comments come as police chiefs ...