Ballistic data to aid European fight against gun crime
Tuesday, 27 January, 2009
A new forensics system bringing together gun crime and ballistics data from across Europe is being developed in the West Midlands.
The Odyssey system is being developed by Tamworth-based Forensic Pathways as part of an EU funded project. When completed, the state-of-the-art computer system will, for the first time, automate the collection and sharing of data about gun crime from across Europe and automatically alert police services about links between crimes.
It will collect 'ballistic fingerprints' from guns and ammunition, and store the data, enabling law enforcement agencies across the continent to routinely share firearms intelligence in the fight against terrorism and organised crime.
Richard Leary, managing director of Forensic Pathways, said: "As Europe grows larger and barriers continue to come down, it is becoming increasingly easy for weapons and firearms to cross borders without detection and be used in numerous crimes.
"One of the primary uses of the Odyssey system will be to develop a new standard for gun crime forensics. The system will automatically recognise links and instantly alert police and security officials the moment ballistics data is matched with similar crimes around Europe. It will mean, for example, a bullet or cartridge case collected from a crime scene in the UK will be fast tracked linked to a firearm recovered in France. From there, it will be easier for police to track the weapon's history and link it to other crimes."
The two-year, multimillion pound project will massively reduce the time and expense of gun crime forensics. For example, research has already shown that currently the cost of forensically comparing a single recovered bullet across national EU databases can range between £8,000 for a single country check to £270,000 to compare with several countries.
Other partners in the project, which is one of the largest developments of a forensic database anywhere in the world, are Sheffield Hallam University, UK Police including New Scotland Yard and West Midlands Police, as well as organisations from Spain, Holland, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, Belgium and the Republic of Ireland.
Project manager at Forensic Pathways, Jenny Thomas, added: "Historically, ballistics forensics has been limited to manual inspections involving one case at a time. Bullets and cartridge cases are not routinely searched against systems in other EU member states because there is no technology to do so remotely and physically carrying an exhibit from country to country is extremely time consuming and expensive. Odyssey will rectify that and virtually bring information together in one place and in a single format.
"When completed, this information will become a vital tool in the international fight against organised crime and terrorism.
"As criminals get more technologically savvy and come up with ever-more elaborate ways to cover their tracks, law enforcement agencies need to keep up and move ahead of them. Technology like this can solve crimes quickly and inexpensively. It is another tool in the armoury in the ongoing fight against crime and will become just as important as the fingerprint and DNA databases."
