Fingerprints collected from crime scenes can provide invaluable evidence to forensic teams, and a new technique could help to identify criminals even quicker.
Scientists have developed a new technique to detect traces of various substances within a fingerprint.
This could help police to identify the suspect’s gender, what they’ve eaten, and even if they’ve used a condom.
The fingerprint technology is ‘set for court use’, and the Home Office believes it could be just months before it is widely used.
Scientists have developed a new technique to detect traces of various substances within a fingerprint. This could help police to identify the suspect’s gender, what they’ve eaten, and even if they’ve used a condom (stock image)
Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University have developed the technology, which is a form of mass spectrometry.
The technique works by vaporising the fingerprint sample, before firing it through an electric and magnetic field inside a vacuum.
Under these conditions, particles of different mass behave differently, allowing the researchers to identify specific molecules within the print.
Speaking to the BBC, Dr Simona Francese, project lead said: ‘When you think about what a fingerprint is, it’s nothing else but sweat and sweat is a biological matrix.
‘It contains molecules from within your body but also molecules that you have just contaminated your fingertips with, so the amount of information there potentially to retrieve is huge.’
Since 2012, the researchers have been working with the West Yorkshire Police to test the technology.
Neil Denison, acting director of Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Scientific Support at West Yorkshire Police, said: ‘We’re very, very keen to keep up with criminals quite frankly, and this is one way that we can do that.
‘It confirms our hopes because that’s what this work is about. It’s about looking to the future, fingerprints have been pretty dormant for 80 or 90 years but in the future we are hopeful that we’ll be able to get more useful intelligence from fingerprints that will help us in the prevention and detection of crime.’
The technique works by vaporising the fingerprint sample, before firing it through an electric and magnetic field inside a vacuum. Under these conditions, particles of different mass behave differently, allowing researchers to identify molecules within the print (stock image)
During trials, the researchers used the technology to detect blood in a 30-year-old print.
This indicates that it could be used to review previously unsolved cases.
Dr Francese said: ‘I would want to see this technology in high-profile cases such a murder or rape.
‘It’s very sophisticated, it’s expensive but it’s worthwhile.’
So far, The Home Office has invested £80,000 ($105,000) in the project, and experts believe it’s not long before the technique is widely used.
Senior technical specialist, Stephen Bleay, said: ‘There’s a lot of scientific work going on, with Sheffield Hallam University and West Yorkshire Police visiting crime scenes looking at how this technique could fit in with the work flow of collecting conventional forensic evidence and other types of evidence, such as DNA and fibres.
‘I think it’s fairly close to bottoming out all the questions that could be raised in court. It’s possible this is only months away from being used on casework.’