A6 Murder DNA evidence

[Victor]

Hi Vic,

This is an interesting point as the judgment assumes the contaminant to be semen and thereby limits the possibilities for contamination. This is one of the flaws of logic that I cannot accept. I don't think that Dr Evison truly accepted that the contaminant had to be semen but I believe he was bullied into accepting that hypothesis.

Hi James,

Why is it a flaw in logic? The sample was a semen stained knicker fragment, and logically you'd expect the DNA profiles discovered to be those people who'd had sex, ie, VS and MG and the rapist. Three profiles were found therefore you have the problem of working out where the rapists semen got to if you suppose that JH wasn't the rapist and his DNA was introduced as a contaminant.

To use words like "bullied" you are pre-supposing that JH is innocent and have closed your mind to the possibility that he was the rapist.

The judgment states Dr Evison's compliance with that hypothesis in suitably vague terms. As highlighted by me in the quote below, "Dr Evison seems to accept ... !"

To his credit Dr Evison never accepted the notion, proposed by the prosecution witnesses, that contamination was considered to be only a remote possibility.

I think that Dr Evison was outnumbered but that doesn't make him wrong!

Regards
James

Again only if you cast Dr Evison in the hero role and judge JH to be innocent when interpretting the evidence can you use words like "to his credit [he] never accepted the notion".

Contamination was considered to be a remote possibility because of the highly improbable situation where JH's DNA magically obliterates the rapist's DNA but leaves behind VS and MG.

The major question that needs to be asked is:- If JH wasn't the rapist, where has the rapists semen got to?

[JamesDean]

Quite right, we do not have the full transcript, but we have the legally binding judgement, which was compiled from discussions of legal representatives and expert witnesses, and when it says that both sides accept that the contaminant would have to be semen then you have got to provide some evidence if you are arguing that it wasn't. It's not a case of semantics, it's a case of you arguing against the experts on both sides.

Hi Vic,

This is an interesting point as the judgment assumes the contaminant to be semen and thereby limits the possibilities for contamination. This is one of the flaws of logic that I cannot accept. I don't think that Dr Evison truly accepted that the contaminant had to be semen but I believe he was bullied into accepting that hypothesis.

The judgment states Dr Evison's compliance with that hypothesis in suitably vague terms. As highlighted by me in the quote below, "Dr Evison seems to accept ... !"

120. Mr Mansfield submits against that background that the respondent has not been
able to exclude the possibility of contamination. In making that submission, he is
supported by Dr Martin Evison who is a senior lecturer in Forensic Biological
Anthropology in the Department of Forensic Anthropology at The Medico Legal
Centre in Sheffield and has many academic achievements and publications to his
credit. He told the court that he had not been able to exclude “the realistic
possibility of contamination”. Dr Evison seems to accept that in the case of the
knicker fragment the contaminant would have to be semen. That really limits the
possibilities to (1) contact between the knickers and the Hepworth trousers and
(2) contact between the contents of the broken vial and the fragment held on file.

To his credit Dr Evison never accepted the notion, proposed by the prosecution witnesses, that contamination was considered to be only a remote possibility.

121. That said we should also record that not one of the respondent’s witnesses
excluded the possibility of contamination. They have expressed themselves in
different ways but the general tenor of the evidence has been that they each
considered the possibility to be remote. That, of course, has to be contrasted
with the opinion of Dr Evison who never moved from his original position as
stated in this judgment.

I think that Dr Evison was outnumbered but that doesn't make him wrong!

Regards
James

[Victor]

Hi Vic

Hi Reg,

Re your post #73. You made 15 points and I will deal with each one in turn.

1) I mentioned the rhesus negative findings in reponse to JamesDeans post #69 (as I referenced). As blood types were mentioned in the Appeal Courts judgement and some doubt exists as to the exactitude of the owners of said blood it seems relevant. As to Alphon, how was his DNA profile obtained and again how could his profile be dismissed competely among all of the other profiles in the mix? Remember we are dealing with LCN and do not know the rfu threshold used. It could be sub 10rfu's for all we know!!

What I meant was that the rhesus state of the blood could not be detected from a sample of semen, so has absolutely no bearing on the conclusions, therefore wasn't mentioned in the judgement.

PLA gave a DNA sample, and none of the alleles of his profile were found in the knicker fragment so the conclusion is that PLA was not the rapist.

I don't know where you are getting the "all of the other profiles in the mix" comment from, there were only 3 found - MG, VS and JH.

And yes, we do not know the rfu threshold used, so negative speculation about it is just that - negative speculation. I cannot argue against it because I don't know, and neither do you.

2) HOW WAS MICHAEL GREGSTENS DNA PROFILE OBTAINED TO ASCERTAIN ABSOLUTELY THAT HIS DNA WAS PRESENT? sorry for shouting but this should be blatantly obvious!!

Yes it is blatantly obvious, and I don't know. I made a very similar comment in post #71. The conclusion I reached is that there is no definite conclusion either way, but it is a cause for concern.

My comments were directed at your critism of the exhumation and especially this "surely an act that is more of a show than of any scientific worth". The point being that the initial comparisons yielded a high probability of a match, and therefore to confirm they exhumed JH to get a direct sample of his DNA.

5) Absolutely. It depends on a lot of things but the plain fact is that anyones clothing is going to contain skin cells no matter what ones ablution policy may be. Even in clean room examinatons they still exists a very real possibility of contamination. This happens in the vast majority of LCN processes. Let alone 1961 as I stated in the post you have referenced.

Yes, but the samples on the knicker fragment were semen and vaginal fluid, therefore any discussion of skin cells in what may have been a wash of the Hepworth trousers is irrelevant.

6) I was actually giving the 1961 team the benefit of the doubt. But point taken nonetheless.

OK, but as we can see from post #76 it's now risen to 150 cells, and yes I'm aware that a flake of skin contains multiple cells, so we now talking about particles rather than cells.

7) The possibility of contamination using LCN is not only possible but is a by product of the sensitivity of the technique. If this has not been explained plainly enough by now then I cannot help any further.

Yes but you seem to be arguing about "lots of profiles in the mix" when there were only 3 specifically mentioned. You cannot say LCN is extremely sensitive and is therefore at risk of high levels of contamination, therefore there were profiles from contaminants. You cannot assume contamination to have taken place without seeing the raw experimental data.

9) Fair enough, but as you stated earlier we do not know what was actually discussed as we do not have access to the full transcript therefore it would be puerile to argue the toss when the semantics are effectively the same.
Yes I do disagree as one cannot tell from the DNA which particular bodily tissue the DNA eminated from. DNA is DNA from whichever cell it was taken!

Quite right, we do not have the full transcript, but we have the legally binding judgement, which was compiled from discussions of legal representatives and expert witnesses, and when it says that both sides accept that the contaminant would have to be semen then you have got to provide some evidence if you are arguing that it wasn't. It's not a case of semantics, it's a case of you arguing against the experts on both sides.

10) Wrong. DNA was detected. It was inconclusive.

In other words, the DNA was not detected in sufficient quantities so as to reach the RFU threshold, ie, my qualifier in brackets was correct and you are wrong to disagree.

11) Sorry but it is true. That is why LCN is used. Only 100 picograms of DNA is needed. The threshold can be as low (or the amplification as high, it is an equivalent) as one likes it will still show up. The problem is how does one interpret the allele peaks at such low levels! Plus then how can replicate samples be verified by more than 2 analysts?

<pedantry warning>So if you have 99 picograms of DNA then it would not be detected!

You are agreeing with me that there is a minimum sample size - and that minimum size is 100 picograms.

12) This is nonsense. In a mixed profile how could you tell who's profile was whose? You would have to subtract, say VS's profile which could remove a part of JH's. Where are you then?

This just shows your lack of understanding of the technique. They use alleles in the highly variable part of DNA where the chances of VS and JH having the same alleles are equivalent to finding identical snowflakes.

13) There would undoubtedly be many numbers of individual DNA's present in the mixed profile. It would be nye on impossible to tell which was which. That is why they produce so many replicates to test individual profiles against. I suggest that Dr Whitaker was just guessing.

No, I just completely disagree with the first line. No matter how many times you argue the possibility or probability of contamination that is not proof that contamination definitely happened. Especially when you are arguing against the known conclusion (note "conclusion", not "results") presented in the judgement.

14) Read the article Dupplin Muir found in his post #74

Read, absorbed. "This is not an argument for the abandonment of any or all DNA methods. It is a warning of the dangers of not understanding the potential for honest error and margins of error. These new techniques are undoubtedly of tremendous value as intelligence in criminal investigation. In cold cases the requirement for other corroborative evidence must reflect the increased uncertainty in the LCN results."

And that's the point isn't it, there is corroborative evidence in the form of VS!

15) Speculation? I think you will find that SGM+ at 34 amplification cycles is LCN. SGM+ has been validated for obvious reasons. Look it up somewhere, not Wikapaedia though please. I am an MSc research student so don't fob me off with references to Wikapaedia alone.

regards
Reg

Yes! LCN is more than just 34 cycle SGM+. SGM+ defines a procedure and minimum standards that must be met for each PCR cycle.

Here's your quote "Was a voting system introduced to pick the best of 3 (or 10, imagine if the consensus vote is wrong), I'm not joking this is how LCN is done." now it starts with the word "Was" but is missing a question mark, so maybe you meant to say "A voting system was introduced..."

KR,
Vic.

[Victor]

From this we see that it is indeed possible to get a LCN profile from a single cell.

There are a couple of points to pick up from that summary. First, the above is slightly misleading, the minimum threshold is 100pg

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3607993.stm
"The mass of a single cell of the E coli bacterium is 665 femtograms, the researchers say in the Journal of Applied Physics.

A femtogram is one-thousandth of a picogram, which is one-thousandth of a nanogram, which is a billionth of a gram."

Therefore if we assume 1 cell is 2/3 of a picogram you roughly need 150 cells to be detectable.

Secondly, "To understand why that may be a problem it is useful to consider that each of us have about 1014 cells in our body, each with a full DNA profile packed inside them." is blatantly wrong. 1014 cells weighs roughly 1014 x 2/3 picogram = 676 picogram. A person weighs in the region of 50Kg or 50,000 grammes. 1picogram = 10E-12g. I assume that quote should say each of us has 10 to the power of 14 cells in our body.

More later, things are going crazy with work...

Hi Vic

Re your post #73. You made 15 points and I will deal with each one in turn.

1) I mentioned the rhesus negative findings in reponse to JamesDeans post #69 (as I referenced). As blood types were mentioned in the Appeal Courts judgement and some doubt exists as to the exactitude of the owners of said blood it seems relevant. As to Alphon, how was his DNA profile obtained and again how could his profile be dismissed competely among all of the other profiles in the mix? Remember we are dealing with LCN and do not know the rfu threshold used. It could be sub 10rfu's for all we know!!

2) HOW WAS MICHAEL GREGSTENS DNA PROFILE OBTAINED TO ASCERTAIN ABSOLUTELY THAT HIS DNA WAS PRESENT? sorry for shouting but this should be blatantly obvious!!

3) See 7 below

4) See 7 below

5) Absolutely. It depends on a lot of things but the plain fact is that anyones clothing is going to contain skin cells no matter what ones ablution policy may be. Even in clean room examinatons they still exists a very real possibility of contamination. This happens in the vast majority of LCN processes. Let alone 1961 as I stated in the post you have referenced.

6) I was actually giving the 1961 team the benefit of the doubt. But point taken nonetheless.

7) The possibility of contamination using LCN is not only possible but is a by product of the sensitivity of the technique. If this has not been explained plainly enough by now then I cannot help any further.

8) Nothing here.

9) Fair enough, but as you stated earlier we do not know what was actually discussed as we do not have access to the full transcript therefore it would be puerile to argue the toss when the semantics are effectively the same.
Yes I do disagree as one cannot tell from the DNA which particular bodily tissue the DNA eminated from. DNA is DNA from whichever cell it was taken!

10) Wrong. DNA was detected. It was inconclusive.

11) Sorry but it is true. That is why LCN is used. Only 100 picograms of DNA is needed. The threshold can be as low (or the amplification as high, it is an equivalent) as one likes it will still show up. The problem is how does one interpret the allele peaks at such low levels! Plus then how can replicate samples be verified by more than 2 analysts?

12) This is nonsense. In a mixed profile how could you tell who's profile was whose? You would have to subtract, say VS's profile which could remove a part of JH's. Where are you then?

13) There would undoubtedly be many numbers of individual DNA's present in the mixed profile. It would be nye on impossible to tell which was which. That is why they produce so many replicates to test individual profiles against. I suggest that Dr Whitaker was just guessing.

14) Read the article Dupplin Muir found in his post #74

15) Speculation? I think you will find that SGM+ at 34 amplification cycles is LCN. SGM+ has been validated for obvious reasons. Look it up somewhere, not Wikapaedia though please. I am an MSc research student so don't fob me off with references to Wikapaedia alone.

regards
Reg

[Dupplin Muir]

An interesting article

Hello all

The following article comes from The Journal Online, the online members magazine of the Law Society of Scotland:

http://www.journalonline.co.uk/article/1003857.aspx

It is not an overstatement to say that the advent of forensic DNA analysis has revolutionised the place of scientific evidence in court. The public perception, judged by a wholesale acceptance of the National DNA Database (NDNAB) as a “Good Thing”, underlines the need to educate people, and especially those involved in the investigation and prosecution of crime, of the potential dangers that accompany the undoubted benefits of this technology.

DNA analysis is one of the most scientifically robust techniques to be placed before a court. A series of legal and scientific challenges has honed the collection, processing, analysis and evaluation of DNA evidence to reduce the possibilities for erroneous results. Already some other evidence types have benefited from the advances in evidence evaluation that followed the challenges to DNA. On the other hand, some identification disciplines with a long pedigree in court, but little or none in science, have signally failed to catch the wind that is now blowing through forensic science. DNA has reminded us that no matter how small or large the numbers, all scientific evidence is probabilistic, and only an exclusion of involvement can be regarded as certain.

Overwhelming odds?
For a DNA profile 10 areas of DNA are analysed, rather like examining only 10 shelves in a library. Maybe 10% of people have a Harry Potter book. Five per cent have Alice in Wonderland. Thirty per cent have A Brief History of Time (and 0.01% understood it!). The probability of someone having all three books is 1/10 x 1/20 x 3/10 = 3/2000, or approximately 1 in 666. You can see that no matter how many books you choose to include in the search, the probability of finding a person with all of those books will get smaller, but never reach 0.

Two features of DNA evidence that can be viewed as its major benefits also produce its greatest potential dangers: specificity and sensitivity. Specificity can be considered as being similar to what used to be called discriminating power, in effect how useful it is in telling two people apart. In DNA this is usually expressed as the match probability: the probability that the DNA profile would be obtained by choosing a person at random from the population. This number is now routinely in excess of 1 in a billion (1 thousand million). Unfortunately this is usually wrongly perceived as meaning that the odds are 1 billion to 1 that the accused is the perpetrator. This even has a name: the prosecutor’s fallacy. (The defence have their very own, different, fallacy too.) Juries, now fully conversant with forensic science via CSI, Waking the Dead and Silent Witness, add these compelling figures to the compelling figures of their TV heroes to conclude that “guilty” is the only sound choice. We have now even coined the term “CSI effect” to recognise the (damaging?) effect of these programmes on juries.

Sensitivity is a measure of how little DNA we need to perform analyses and produce a profile. Until recently DNA was recovered from visible stains like blood splashes or semen stains. Then we started to collect samples, usually by swabbing, from areas where we may expect to find DNA from body fluids, e.g. cigarette ends, cutlery, spectacle frames. The introduction of Low Copy Number DNA (LCN) has seen us now enter an era where single pieces of DNA may produce profiles; that is, less than 100 picograms (0.0000000001g) of DNA.

A little part of yourself
To understand why that may be a problem it is useful to consider that each of us have about 1014 cells in our body, each with a full DNA profile packed inside them. We lose a number of these cells every minute of every day (and night – that’s what keeps a family of bed bugs in food). Everywhere you go you probably leave your DNA. And here’s the problem: your DNA goes places you’ve never been. This is probably one of the main differences between DNA and fingerprints. A correct fingerprint identification, on a fixed object, may establish that you were at a particular point, but DNA can be transferred from you to someone else and from that someone to somewhere else you may never have been.

When we had blood or semen stains that could be seen, we were perhaps a little more confident that this established a link between the source of the stain and the location of the donor. But if you can walk through the supermarket and one of your cells blows into a vehicle or onto a surface a distance away, then it has literally distanced itself from you.

Combine the compelling specificity with molecular level sensitivity, and a population DNA database, and you have a potential scenario where your DNA is found at a crime scene that you have never been near. Your name and address are obtained from the database and the police informed that there is a 1 in a billion match probability. On questioning you say, truthfully, that you have never been in that location. What is the policeman thinking? “Mistake”, “Sorry to have troubled you, sir”, or “Liar”?

Inevitably, you become a suspect. Is it just possible that this apparently compelling evidence will be placed alongside some other circumstantial evidence (can YOU account for, and prove, where you are every hour of every day?) to gain a conviction?

Contaminated evidence?
As much as the DNA technologies created controversy and challenges when they were introduced, LCN DNA has produced its very own set of problems. Not least among these is the limited number of providers of this technology. In many cases they are working with old, degraded, or sub-microscopic volumes of material.

Many, if not all, of these old, or “cold”, cases occurred before DNA forced a rethink of the possibilities for contamination of evidence. Exhibits were collected with little regard for who was handling them or the possibilities of cross contamination from suspects to items via the investigating officer. Even the laboratory environment or procedures would not be designed to protect against the transfer of such low amounts of material. This was not negligence; it just didn’t consider the possibility of such traces becoming important.

In forensic science the fact to be established is that the DNA profile originated from the material recovered from a crime scene or a suspect, not the investigator, the laboratory, packaging, or analytical instruments. A “negative control” is set up by simply processing a “blank” sample that has no DNA. All being well, this control will not show any DNA. The presence of DNA in the negative control illustrates that there has been a source of contamination in the analytical method. It does not, of itself, show where that occurred, merely that it has. The tradition over many years has been, for very sound reasons, that anything found in the “negative control” invalidates the analysis.

There are now some who argue that this principle cannot be applied to LCN DNA analysis, because even in a tightly controlled analytical procedure a significant number of supposedly negative controls give a positive result, i.e. they indicate the presence of DNA.

The issue of course is that if it cannot be established that the DNA has been introduced during the analysis, how can any of the DNA found in the crime stains be shown NOT to have come from the procedure rather than the scene?

Lastly, the very small amounts of DNA and the vagaries of the method mean that it is frequently the case that replicate samples, that should produce the same results, don’t. The process gets around this difficulty by simply taking a vote of three replicates. DNA types found in two of the three are regarded as real and counted in the “consensus” profile. We use the consensus result as the basis of the statistical calculation of how rare a combination is in the population at large – in effect the probative value of the DNA evidence.

Probability and uncertainty
Now imagine that we take 10 of these consensus results for different areas of DNA to calculate the match probability. This process will yield a statement of the form, “the probability of this profile coming from X rather than some unknown, unrelated person is…”, and then a number that is frequently of the order of billions, but with no statement of the confidence that we can place in that result despite the clear, and probably measurable, uncertainty that must exist.

This is not an argument for the abandonment of any or all DNA methods. It is a warning of the dangers of not understanding the potential for honest error and margins of error. These new techniques are undoubtedly of tremendous value as intelligence in criminal investigation. In cold cases the requirement for other corroborative evidence must reflect the increased uncertainty in the LCN results.

The scientific issue is the degree of confidence that can be placed in the results and the consequent opinion. The legal issue is whether the destructive techniques meet the requirements of physical evidence acceptable in court.

Professor Allan Jamieson is Director of The Forensic Institute, Glasgow

From this we see that it is indeed possible to get a LCN profile from a single cell. Note also that Dr Jamieson says "..the requirement for other corroborative evidence must reflect the increased uncertainty in the LCN results." In other words LCN DNA by itself is not sufficient.

I suspect that Hanratty's appeal came at an unfortunate time, when the police had pretty well a monopoly of DNA expertise, particularly in LCN DNA, with the result that the team in charge of his appeal could not really counter Dr Whitaker's testimony. Nowadays there are several well-respected laboratories that can provide defence counsel with experts capable of critiquing prosecution evidence, and it certainly seems that police DNA experts are getting a much rougher ride in court than they used to.

DM

[Victor]

I found an interesting piece in Woffinden (1997. p400) where before James Snr died the Hanratty family found James' blood donor card. It seems he was not only O secretor but also rhesus negative. Geoffrey Bindman (their solicitor) contacted a consultant haematologist who told him that seminal fluid did not contain the rhesus factor. The government at the time, furnished with this information stated it did not throw any new light on the case. Fair enough there then...... but...was any mention made of this in the Court of Appeal judgement. No. (also in what circumstances was Alphon excluded!!!! lack of knowledge of LCN on the part of the appellant perhaps? I'll come back to that later in this post.)

How about...it wasn't mentioned because it was irrelevant? The Hanratty family solicitor investigated, and the person he contacted said it wasn't relevant. It's not mentioned in the judgement, but that doesn't mean it wasn't discussed, the judgement is a summary of relevant information presented by either side.

PLA was excluded because they didn't find any of his DNA in the profiles.

Another point. Say we take that the profile of Mike had been obtained from an immediate family member as being the case. It just makes the exhumation of James (and his aunt) all the more of an odious act. If the exhumation was at all unnecessary it just makes it all the more vindictive and surely an act that is more of a show than of any scientific worth.
This just adds to the assumptions and the subjectivity of the interpretation of the mixed profile that Dr Whitaker had obtained from the fragment of Valeries underwear in 1997. (In my opinion the DNA evidence obtained from the hanky can be discarded as we know that it was James')

This doesn't follow at all. They did use DNA from JH's mother and brother for the initial comparison and found a match, therefore to confirm the result they needed a definite sample of DNA from JH. If the initial match to ma and bro had been negative then they would not have needed to exhume. Surely this is blatantly obvious.

As for mixed profiles consider the following;
From paragraph 114 of the Appeal judgement (2002)

Why not enbolden this too..."His recollection is that the dangers of contamination were recognised even in 1961 and that the practice was to take elementary precautions such as making sure that clothing from victim and suspect were not examined on the same day."

This is were real reasonable doubt enters the ring. Persistence of DNA betweeen the analysis sessions is not only possible but very probable.

Big leap of logic there - the paragraph confirms Mr Howard's comment about not being examined on the same day. And you are making countless assumptions about the isolation and cleaning policies of the laboratory with no evidence to back it up.

Any items worn by James would be full of his DNA.

"full of"? It's just not possible to say that without lots of qualifiers like "provided the items weren't washed", "dependant upon how frequently James bathed", "dependant upon the time between wearing and examination" etc...

It only takes a few cells to have been present on the lab work surface for transfer to have taken place.

Rewording that slightly...
It is an absolute necessity for a few cells to have been present on the lab work surface for the possibility of transfer to have taken place.

Even if todays standards of clean room examination are applied there still exists the possibilty of transfer of contamination. Let alone in 1961 even allowing for Mr Howards 'best practice'. (p 114 above)

Yes. The possibily of contamination is extremely difficult to eliminate, that is why it was admitted and examined.

and a partial fragment from paragraph 120
"Dr Evison seems to accept that in the case of the knicker fragment the contaminant would have to be semen."

This is the killer statement in the whole process as far as I am concerned.

I agree, it is a killer statement.

It is therefore obvious that if Dr Evison had been up to speed with LCN DNA analysis he would not have needed to make this statement.

It is not a statement by Dr Evison!

It impies that Dr Evison accepts the statement of the prosecution!

Are you saying you disagree with the statement? If so, why?

In previous DNA analysis techniques (including SGM+) the contaminant would not have been picked up as was shown in 1995 (because of the high supra 150 RFU) when the tests were inconclusive.

No DNA was detected (above the threshold) in 1995.

Under LCN, any DNA by whatever transfer or contaminant would have been picked up!

Not true. There is a threshold below which DNA is not detected in sufficient quantities - in other words there is a minimum sample size for LCN.

That still does excuse the fact that a mixed profile would still be the best that Dr Whitaker had to work with and the question is how could he ascertain who's profile was which.

He had samples of VS and JH DNA with which to compare!

At what RFU level(s) was he working and on what basis did he dismiss the other (obviously present) profiles?

First part - I would like to know too. Second part - "obviously present" - I presume you are talking about VS and MG's profiles as there are not necessarily (and in fact it is stated that there are not) any others.

How many replicate samples were produced and what was the result of these?

Good question, I want to know too - but it is asking for more details of the technique.

Was a voting system introduced to pick the best of 3 (or 10, imagine if the consensus vote is wrong), I'm not joking this is how LCN is done. This is why we hear of profiles being perhaps billions against the suspect not being profile X!

Pure speculation. You might not be joking but you are giving the worst possible interpretation you can. For all you know the LCN process might be the SGM+ process with "repeat 29 times" replaced with "repeat 34 times". And yes that is me giving the best possible interpretation to contrast with your worst.

Regards,
Vic.

Hi All

Re JamesDeans post #69

Blood type can be established from DNA with potentially greater accuracy than was possible using serological tests in 1961. The DNA analysis of 1997 would have identified the blood type as part of the profile of any DNA found on the fragment. That one of the male DNA could be ascertained to correlate with blood type AB does not prove that it belonged to Michael Gregsten, although logic says it is likely, without comparing the profile to genetic material known to be from MG or his family (parents/children). I do wonder if it was taken for granted that the male DNA of blood type AB was MG's without any further comparison being made. The use of the words assumed and attributed in paragraphs 113 and 125 of the judgment, as mentioned in my earlier post #63, suggests this to be the case.

If an assumption was made along those lines, does this raise any cause for concern?

I found an interesting piece in Woffinden (1997. p400) where before James Snr died the Hanratty family found James' blood donor card. It seems he was not only O secretor but also rhesus negative. Geoffrey Bindman (their solicitor) contacted a consultant haematologist who told him that seminal fluid did not contain the rhesus factor. The government at the time, furnished with this information stated it did not throw any new light on the case. Fair enough there then...... but...was any mention made of this in the Court of Appeal judgement. No. (also in what circumstances was Alphon excluded!!!! lack of knowledge of LCN on the part of the appellant perhaps? I'll come back to that later in this post.)

Another point. Say we take that the profile of Mike had been obtained from an immediate family member as being the case. It just makes the exhumation of James (and his aunt) all the more of an odious act. If the exhumation was at all unnecessary it just makes it all the more vindictive and surely an act that is more of a show than of any scientific worth.
This just adds to the assumptions and the subjectivity of the interpretation of the mixed profile that Dr Whitaker had obtained from the fragment of Valeries underwear in 1997. (In my opinion the DNA evidence obtained from the hanky can be discarded as we know that it was James')

As for mixed profiles consider the following;

From paragraph 114 of the Appeal judgement (2002)

On 7 October 1961 a suitcase containing James Hanratty’s clothing was seized from the home of his girlfriend, Louise Anderson. It was received at the laboratory on 9 October. Amongst other items it contained a pair of dark pinstriped trousers (part of the Hepworth suit) and a green jacket and trousers. Some hairs and fibres were removed from the outside of the dark trousers as was a sample from a seminal stain on the inside of the fly. A suggestion, which has not been contradicted, is that the seminal stain may have been washed out and retained in the form of a liquid. On 13 October, the laboratory received samples of James Hanratty’s blood and saliva. It was only at this point that the police became aware of his blood grouping. The records are incomplete but there would seem to be no reason for any of James Hanratty’s items of clothing or for his intimate samples to be present in the laboratory at the same time as the knickers or the handkerchief. There is, of course, the possibility that all the exhibits were stored in the same place, albeit separately packaged, which, it is submitted, might have provided the opportunity for secondary contamination. Dr Nickolls is dead. Mr Howard is still alive though in poor health. His recollection is that the dangers of contamination were recognised even in 1961 and that the practice was to take elementary precautions such as making sure that clothing from victim and suspect were not examined on the same day.

(my enboldening)

and paragraph 116

As a result of correspondence between James Hanratty’s then solicitors and the DPP, arrangements were made for the pathologist, Dr Grant, to have access to James Hanratty’s intimate samples and also to certain of the exhibits. It appears from the records that Dr Grant examined the green jacket and trousers on 28 December 1961 and Valerie Storie’s slips and knickers the following day. It was on this latter occasion that a portion of the crotch area of the knickers was removed and thereafter, as seems clear, stored separately from the other exhibits including the knickers from which it had been excised. As also seems clear, a fragment of the excised portion was retained by the laboratory having first been placed in a small envelope made of cellophane and sellotape which was in turn put into a small brown envelope and the small envelope into a larger envelope before being treasury tagged to a laboratory file. It was so placed when rediscovered in 1991.

This is were real reasonable doubt enters the ring. Persistence of DNA betweeen the analysis sessions is not only possible but very probable. Any items worn by James would be full of his DNA. It only takes a few cells to have been present on the lab work surface for transfer to have taken place. Even if todays standards of clean room examination are applied there still exists the possibilty of transfer of contamination. Let alone in 1961 even allowing for Mr Howards 'best practice'. (p 114 above)

and a partial fragment from paragraph 120

Dr Evison seems to accept that in the case of the knicker fragment the contaminant would have to be semen.

This is the killer statement in the whole process as far as I am concerned. It is therefore obvious that if Dr Evison had been up to speed with LCN DNA analysis he would not have needed to make this statement.
In previous DNA analysis techniques (including SGM+) the contaminant would not have been picked up as was shown in 1995 (because of the high supra 150 RFU) when the tests were inconclusive. Under LCN, any DNA by whatever transfer or contaminant would have been picked up!
That still does excuse the fact that a mixed profile would still be the best that Dr Whitaker had to work with and the question is how could he ascertain who's profile was which. At what RFU level(s) was he working and on what basis did he dismiss the other (obviously present) profiles? How many replicate samples were produced and what was the result of these? Was a voting system introduced to pick the best of 3 (or 10, imagine if the consensus vote is wrong), I'm not joking this is how LCN is done. This is why we hear of profiles being perhaps billions against the suspect not being profile X!

Regards
Reg

[Victor]

"The knickers arrived at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory (MPL) on 23 August 1961 where they were examined by Dr Nickolls, the director and his assistant, Henry Howard. They were found to be stained with seminal fluid in the area of the crotch and at the back for five inches upwards from the crotch. Vaginal fluid from Valerie Storie was also present. There were smaller quantities of seminal fluid of blood group AB assumed to have come at some earlier stage from Michael Gregsten."

To me these sentences say that in 1961 they found 2 sets of semen, one was blood type AB so they assumed it to be MG's and from that point forward described it as "attributed to MG", the other was the rapists (subsequently in 1961 found to be blood type O)

Now that's not a problem IF they subsequently positively identified the AB-semen as MG's via the DNA profile.

To me this sentence "The same would have to be true of the DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten." doesn't say that MG's DNA was positively identified, but it also doesn't say that it was.

A nonsensical statement unless DNA attributed to MG had indeed survived along with VS's and JH's. It tends to imply that at the very least there were two male DNA profiles to work with.

This quote from Caz I agree with but we've got those qualifiers in there.

Is it a cause for concern? Yes it is!

[caz]

The use of the words assumed and attributed in paragraphs 113 and 125 of the judgment, as mentioned in my earlier post #63, suggests this to be the case.

If an assumption was made along those lines, does this raise any cause for concern?

Thanks James.

'Suggests' is fair enough, but we don't know for sure. 'If' can be a very big word.

If and when 'experts' talk in absolute terms, their objectivity can be called into question; when they use words that act as caveats and qualifiers, the strength of their evidence can be doubted. Damned if they do and damned if they don't.

If an assumption was made, and by some freak chance the AB DNA did not come from MG but some other unknown male, we would just have to add another couple of layers to the mystery in order for JH to have been innocent: rapist's original O DNA not found on knicker fragment; MG's AB DNA not found on fragment; JH's O DNA transferred to fragment via a contamination event; unknown male AB DNA found on fragment for unknown reason.

We are still pretty much stuck with the rapist's blood group being O.

I don't think they could have done much else back in 1961 but assume it was MG's AB semen in addition to the rapist's O semen. But I do take your point about it being a potential cause for concern, if this was compounded by at least one more assumption at the later DNA analysis stage.

Let's hope they did obtain DNA from a suitable Gregsten relative for comparison. That would seem the obvious thing to do, if they knew JH's team would be looking for no less than a belt and braces job.

Blimey, pass the headache pills.

Off for a long weekend - see you Monday. Be good.

Love,

Caz
X

[JamesDean]

Would the respective blood groups have been confirmed again along with the DNA analysis? (You see how woefully ignorant I am about what can and can't be ascertained after 40 years.) The point being, we do at least know that the rapist's blood group was found early on to be O and not AB.

Blood type can be established from DNA with potentially greater accuracy than was possible using serological tests in 1961. The DNA analysis of 1997 would have identified the blood type as part of the profile of any DNA found on the fragment. That one of the male DNA could be ascertained to correlate with blood type AB does not prove that it belonged to Michael Gregsten, although logic says it is likely, without comparing the profile to genetic material known to be from MG or his family (parents/children). I do wonder if it was taken for granted that the male DNA of blood type AB was MG's without any further comparison being made. The use of the words assumed and attributed in paragraphs 113 and 125 of the judgment, as mentioned in my earlier post #63, suggests this to be the case.

If an assumption was made along those lines, does this raise any cause for concern?

Regards
James

[caz]

Hi Victor,

If 'the male contribution' in the context of para 108 merely meant the specific contribution assumed (that word again) to have come from the offender, maybe it was not thought necessary to mention MG's contribution to the profiling at this point.

The relevant wording in para 125 does seem to be fairly unambiguous:

'Moreover, we would also have to suppose that Valerie Storie’s DNA had
remained in its original state, or at least detectable, and had escaped being
overridden by DNA from James Hanratty. The same would have to be true of the DNA attributed to Michael Gregsten.'

A nonsensical statement unless DNA attributed to MG had indeed survived along with VS's and JH's. It tends to imply that at the very least there were two male DNA profiles to work with. It doesn't bear thinking about if the one that wasn't JH's was just assumed to be MG's, without any further confirmation. Would the respective blood groups have been confirmed again along with the DNA analysis? (You see how woefully ignorant I am about what can and can't be ascertained after 40 years.) The point being, we do at least know that the rapist's blood group was found early on to be O and not AB.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

Hi again,

I agree with Caz, assumed in this context implies to me that they found some AB semen, spotted that MG was AB, and from VS's evidence decided it was his.

Re-reading it gives me the impression that attributed to is taking the "assumption" one step further - we assumed it was MG, so now we've attributed the AB-type DNA profile to him.

If you add in para 108 "These comparisons confirmed that the male contribution to the profiling from the knickers almost certainly came from either a son of Mary or a brother of Michael" - "male contribution" singular?

Of course this contradicts the whole thrust of para 125 quoted in fulkl by James above.

[caz]

Hi James, Victor,

Can you tell from the context whether the word assumed comes from the undated notes made in 1961 or at the time para 113 was written? If it's the former, I don't think it would be so much of a problem, because it would have to have been an 'assumption' then, based on Valerie's account of the night's events, rather than scientific proof. (I hope to God they at least confirmed that Gregsten's blood group was indeed AB! )

As for attributed, I agree with James that it does sound a tad imprecise for comfort. But could it be scientist-cum-legal 'speak' to distinguish a match obtained from the actual person (alive or dead - in the previous sentence we get Valerie Storie's DNA and DNA from James Hanratty) from a match obtained from relatives?

Treading softly here because my skills are not in the science department at all, but I can sometimes help with English usage and interpretation.

Love,

Caz
X

[Victor]

Note the use of the word assumed in paragraph 113 and attributed in paragraph 125.

I'm not convinced that Gregsten's DNA was ever positively identified.

Any thoughts?

Hi James,

I completely agree with assumed, but not so much with attributed although that could go either way.