Another Constable

I remember when fingerprints were a good indication that someone had been someplace, especially places that they shouldn’t. It seems that fingerprints are no longer seen as strong enough evidence, and must be supported by some other evidence (e.g. CCTV). Why does everything need to be caught on CCTV these days for it to be believed?

A colleague the other day was dealing with a burglary from some commercial premises. A local crooks fingerprints were found inside the premises on the cabinet from which items were stolen. There was no other evidence - the crime being investigated purely on the fingerprint hit taken by CSI from the crime scene.

On interview, the crook goes “no comment”, and despite special warnings, refuses to account for his fingerprints being in the burgled premises - premises that he would never have visited in the course of his day to day business.

Special warnings allow a court to draw inferences from a suspects refusal to account for things like fingerprints being at a crime scene - i.e. they are allowed to decide that they are there for dubious purpose in the absence of any excuse for their presence. So, one would expect that the CPS would take this to court, and let the court make their own conclusions… especially with the now admissable “bad character” evidence, highlighting his propensity for burglary.

Hmmm… how wrong am I? Apparently there was a Law Lords ruling that fingerprint evidence alone is not enough. That is according to CPS direct. Perhaps someone can enlighten me as I’m not familiar with this one.

Anyway, CPS refuse to even charge with this one. We all know he burgled the place, he is laughing his tits off because he knows that leaving his fingerprints at crime scenes won’t trouble him at all. Even though they are unique and place at the scene, we can’t do anything with that knowledge. I despair at times.

My advice, if you fear being burgled and want offenders caught and actually prosecuted, install multiple high quality CCTV cameras, and if preferable, catch him in the act and get a signed confession before he leaves. It seems without a confession, there’s no chance of anything ever going to court these days. I sometimes wonder why I bother spending a week investigating a crime for it to be NFA’d even when everyone knows they did it. And furthermore, I wonder how the CSI feel who scour for fingerprints on every single job. Surely they needn’t bother.

AC = very cross.