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The Hand Detectives

Child abusers take elaborate steps to avoid exposure. But investigators have a new forensic science to identify offenders and bring them to justice - Forensic Hand Identification.

“At the end of the day, with DNA, we have difficulty in the forensic arena of separating identical twins, we can do it with a hand no problem at all.” - Professor Dame Sue Black

In 2006 the Metropolitan Police came to Professor Sue Black with an image. An infrared snapshot of a man’s arm, taken from a computer camera in the middle of the night. They wanted to know if she, as one of the world’s most respected forensic anatomists, could find any details that could match the limb in the picture, to a potential child abuse suspect.

That case sparked the development of a new kind of forensic science - Hand Identification. A science that in the past 13 years has aided in securing convictions in some of the most high profile child abuse cases in the UK.

In this programme we explore how Sue and her teams in Dundee and Lancaster University have developed the science of Hand Identification, how it can be used in conjunction with digital forensic techniques to identify offenders, and how by creating a library of hands, Artificial Intelligence can be developed to quickly and accurately assess hands and link child abuse cases around the globe - protecting not just children, but the investigators who put their own mental health at risk as they work to protect the most vulnerable.

Produced by Elizabeth Ann Duffy
Illustration by Seonaid MacKay

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Mon 28 Oct 2019 21:00
BBC Radio 4

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Professor Dame Sue Black

Professor Dame Sue Black
Sue Black is the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University, an anatomist and the UK’s leading forensic anthropologist.  She is the President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the life time Professor of Anatomy for the Royal Scottish Academy. She is a fellow of 4 learned Royal Societies and has been awarded 2 police commendations for her work.  She was awarded an OBE in 2001 and made a Dame in 2016 for her work in forensic anthropology. This included leading the British Forensic war crimes team in Kosovo, body identification following the Asian tsunami, excavations in Iraq and war crimes investigations in Sierra Leone.  She has recently secured £2.5M research funding from Europe to assess the uniqueness of the human hand which will influence her forensic casework pertaining to the identification of perpetrators of child sexual abuse from images. Sue tells us about the development of forensic hand identification, how it is used in criminal investigations and what is needed to take the science further.

Ricki Boswell-Challand

Ricki Boswell-Challand
Ricki graduated in Computer-Aided Physics at Lancaster after which he has spent over 20 years working in commercial software development and industrial R&D in diverse fields including publishing, health care, education and facilities management before returning to Lancaster to join the H-Unique team. He tells us about the hand database being created at Lancaster to research whether or not each human hand is truly unique.

Doctor Simon Duff

Doctor Simon Duff
Simon Duff Deputy Director of Forensic Programmes, in the Faculty of Medicine & Health at the University of Nottingham. 
Until recently Simon's primary clinical work, based at the Merseycare NHS Trust community service, Mersey Forensic Psychology Service and the MSU, The Scott Clinic, was with men who have offended sexually against children. However, working across a community and medium secure setting he also routinely worked with men who had offended sexually against adults, women who had offended against children, violent people, stalkers, and individuals with fetishes. This work has been the driver behind much of Simon's research focus, which is concerned with sexual offending and stalking. 
He explains that the value of images to child sex offenders go beyond satisfying sexual needs, and that there may be reasons that an offender will choose to show their own body in the image.

Doctor Stephen McLean

Doctor Stephen McLean
Dr Stephen J Maclean is an anatomist and certified forensic anthropologist working in the UK. He is currently employed as a Lecturer in Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, where he has been teaching since 2017. He is involved in the teaching of anatomy to undergraduate medical and biomedical sciences student, along with MSc Human Anatomy students. Stephen’s professional interests include forensic anthropology, medical imaging techniques such as x-rays and CT, bone development, which was the subject of his PhD thesis, and musculoskeletal anatomy. He tells us about how complicated an appendage the human hand really is.You can find out more about Stephen’s work or get in contact with him via his staff page, (https://www.ed.ac.uk/biomedical-sciences/anatomy/staff/anatomyteachingstaff/dr-stephen-maclean), or find him on twitter under the username @BoneDoctorPhD.

David Reid

David Reid
David Reid is an Independent Computer Forensic consultant, former head of the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit Scotland and Computer forensics at Lothian and Borders Police. He has 25 years of experience in computer and network forensics. He explains his role in investigating the case of Neil Strachan in Edinburgh, and how Forensic Hand Identification can be used in conjunction with other forensic techniques.

Broadcasts

  • Tue 22 Oct 2019 11:00
    BBC Radio 4
  • Mon 28 Oct 2019 21:00
    BBC Radio 4

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