§ Mr. Gordon PrenticeTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many criminal investigations are current where the crime in question was committed more than five years ago. [151760]
§ Mr. Charles ClarkeThe information requested is not available.
The National Crime Faculty at the Bramshill Police Staff College has a Serious Crime Analysis Section which collates details of both solved and unsolved serious crime in the United Kingdom (mainly murders, rapes and abductions). The crimes are recorded on a database, and the details of new crimes are searched against the existing crimes on the database to look for commonalties. This ensures that unsolved crimes are at least being reviewed regularly. Currently, there are 418 crimes committed before 31 December 1995 on the database. In the same way, crime scene stains on the National DNA Database are regularly compared against new suspect samples as they are loaded onto the system.
Examples of old cases where advances in DNA technology have recently resulted in convictions include the murder of Louise Sellars in 1995, whose killer was convicted after DNA was obtained from a cigarette butt, and the murder of Mary Gregson, which had occurred in 1977.
The Association of Chief Police Officers issued Major Incident Room Standardised Adminstrative Procedures (MIRSAP) guidelines in April 2000. These gave guidance on the review process in relation to murder investigations, and where appropriate, other major crime inquiries. Each undetected murder is reviewed after 28 days and thereafter at least once every two years. Each force therefore has its own policy for dealing with reviews based on these guidelines, including cold case reviews.