Lancashire partnership for national Excellence in Policing award

Date published: 05 August 2010

LANCASHIRE Constabulary and DNA company ADNAS are one of three finalists of the Excellence in Policing award 2010 after their partnership led to the first criminal investigation in the UK to use DNA analysis of dyed notes stolen in a cash in transit robbery.

Officers from the Force Major Investigation Team worked in partnership with scientists from ADNAS to develop a way of making the forensic analysis of DNA stained notes more accessible to UK police forces after they came up against barriers during an investigation into a cash in transit robbery that happened in Blackburn in 2008.

In December 2008, a cash in transit robbery was committed on Preston Old Road in Blackburn where a cash delivery to an ATM was intercepted and the security guard was shot in the leg. The offenders made away with the cash boxes but when they broke the case open, the notes were stained with a security dye, created by ADNAS.

This dye contains a DNA code and unless the box is opened in the correct way, for example if someone forcibly breaks open these boxes, the dye is released and stains the notes.

Each box has its own individual vial of dye which contains a unique DNA code and therefore any notes stained by this dye after being stolen can be traced back to the exact box used on an exact delivery.

As the investigation by Lancashire Constabulary into this robbery continued, assistance from the public led to them recover a number of notes stained with the dye that could be linked back to the cash box that was stolen during the Blackburn robbery. However, at that time no process existed for forensically identifying the notes for a number of reasons including, cost and the examination process being incompatible with the UK criminal justice system and so officers from Lancashire Constabulary approached ADNAS and a number of security companies and a new process was created and put in place which meant that notes stained with this dye could now examined and used as evidence in a UK court.

Since the creation of this process, the laboratory have dealt with 33 different cases from five different police force areas and has achieved a 100% success rate in linking submissions to dye stained stolen cash.

This has resulted in 15 individuals being convicted of offences, most notably of these cases is the Lancashire investigation which led to five defendants being convicted and jailed for a total of over 60 years.

Detective Superintendent Neil Hunter said, “Both this initiative and the partnership itself has challenged the traditional way the police do their business and introduced an imaginative way of forensically submitting dye stained notes stolen during cash in transit robberies.

“Working with ADNAS during our investigation and the ground breaking work around linking and identifying the staining on the notes to the money that was stolen during the robbery was crucial.  It contributed massively to achieving a successful conviction against the offenders involved in the robbery where the security guard was shot and is a great example of partnership working”

Dr. James A. Hayward, CEO of Applied DNA Sciences said, ““It’s a winning collaboration:  cost-effective in challenging times and an excellent example of partners working together. 

“Law enforcement agencies and the security industry now have a failsafe way to inextricably link cash criminals to stolen cash, and send them to jail for long periods of time.

“CViT employees, the general public, and the industry as a whole, are more secure as a direct result of our joint effort.