Trial DNA evidence 'not reliable'
Brian Shivers denies charges of murder and attempted murder following the deaths of two soldiers outside Massereene Army base
Wednesday November 23 2011
The reliability of DNA evidence linking two men to the murders of two British soldiers has been challenged by an international genetics academic at their trial.
Professor Laurence Mueller said one of the methods used to analyse the samples which allegedly connect Colin Duffy and Brian Shivers to the gun attack on Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar had not been sufficiently tested.
The University of California expert, who gave evidence to Antrim Crown Court on behalf of the defendants, said the computer-based statistical technique developed by his fellow American, Dr Mark Perlin, had not yet been accepted by the majority of those practising forensics.
But a Crown lawyer questioned whether Prof Mueller had the relevant expertise in the particular field Dr Perlin works in.
It also emerged that in hundreds of criminal cases the academic has testified in before, he has only given evidence for the prosecution on one occasion.
Sappers Quinsey, 23, and Azimkar, 21, were shot dead by the Real IRA as they collected pizzas with comrades outside Massereene Army base in Antrim town in March 2009.
Duffy, 44, from Forest Glade in Lurgan, Co Armagh, and Shivers, 46, from Sperrin Mews, in Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, deny two charges of murder and the attempted murder of six others - three soldiers, two pizza delivery drivers and a security guard.
Dr Perlin's evidence strongly linked the two men to the getaway car used in the attack.
He carried out tests on DNA data from a seatbelt buckle, a mobile phone and a single matchstick found in or around the Vauxhall Cavalier, which was abandoned partially burnt-out on a country road just a few miles from the shootings. He said that a DNA sample found on the buckle was 5.91 trillion times more likely to be Duffy's than someone else's, while a sample from inside the phone was 6.01 billion times more likely to belong to Shivers than another person.
Dr Perlin carried out hundreds of tests on the samples and explained that he produced a likelihood statistic which was representative. But on the eleventh day of the trial, Prof Mueller questioned that approach, expressing concern that much smaller ratios were not reported on.
