"Reputation and ego are huge in Australian policing. I don't care who solves my old cases. You do as good a job as you can with the technology you have at the time and leave it for the next generation. Over there, that would be considered an horrendous ego challenge. If the original investigator can't solve it, they just tend to put it in the archives, it never comes out again."
On a more sinister level, he says some police officers don't want DNA technology exposing miscarriages they have been involved in.
"They've got this cultural blockage, it's called noble cause corruption, when the cops think someone's done something, we haven't quite got legit evidence, we'll add a little bit to help it on its way. That's when you get these horrendous miscarriages.
"Nobody wants those to come out because you've got cops involved facing jail time, you get politicians who are going to lose elections and so on. When I first went to Sydney, the forensic guys said to me: 'We've never seen so many cops going to the property store getting rid of exhibits from their old investigations'."
TONY WALL; SUNDAY STAR TIMES;
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"Last week on a quiet street in Auckland's upmarket Remuera, a slim, grey-haired man in slacks and a checked shirt bent over and picked up a strange-looking seed pod from the gutter," the National story by Tony Wall published on October 10, 2011 begins, under the heading, "The case of the revealing DNA."
(A sub-heading reads: "Robin Napper introduced DNA profiling to Australia, but found many Aussie coppers didn't want a bar of it. Ostracized by police, the former detective is now helping defence teams overturn wrongful convictions. ")
""See this here," said Robin Napper in his Ricky Gervais accent. "I've got a case at the moment that hinges on one of these." This is the kind of fascinating detour a conversation with Napper can take," the story continues.
"A cop for 31 years, he was at the forefront of the UK's DNA revolution in the 1990s and in 1998 was seconded to New South Wales police to introduce modern DNA profiling techniques.
Today he is an independent forensic investigator based in Perth, offering his services mainly to defence teams. He is a controversial figure for his outspoken views on Australian policing. "I'm banned from the police stations in Western Australia because I was involved in [investigating] so many of their cock-ups. I mean, I've got six people out ... I'm quite proud that people who should not have been in jail for murder, I've been involved in getting them out."
His visit to Auckland is a mix of business and pleasure. His son, Adam, lives in the city, and he is trying to drum up interest in the inaugural International Justice Conference in Perth in March.
Not that the conference lacks interest – one of the guest speakers is David Bain, who will speak publicly for the first time about his experience of the New Zealand justice system.
Napper reckons "crime junkies" will love it. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the former boxer who spent 19 years in prison for a triple murder he didn't commit, will also attend. "Rubin came and saw David in jail," Napper says. "David always said `he was so kind to come and see me and promote my cause, I'll tell my story with Rubin'. So we're gonna put Rubin and David on the stage, can you imagine that?"
Is Napper aware many New Zealanders do not share Bain's view he was wrongly convicted?
"Every single high-profile miscarriage splits the community in half. Half say 'he's done it', half say 'he hasn't'. There's still those who think Lindy Chamberlain [another guest at the conference] killed her baby and that the dingo didn't take it away.
"That's one of the frightening things about the media, you're very powerful, you can plant seeds in people's minds that never go away. Poor David now for the rest of his days will walk into a cafe and there will still be those saying: 'He murdered his family'. He'll never be able to escape that, that's just human nature."
When Napper, 59, arrived in Sydney in 1998, he thought he and his DNA profiling techniques would be welcomed with open arms. He wasn't, and now uses words like "lazy", "backward" and "incredibly politicised" to describe Australian police. He says New Zealand police are "ahead of the game" on embracing the technology.
"They are so resistant to change in Australia. DNA is fabulous technology because it allows you to catch the crooks above the radar that you never used to be able to get to. The politicians and cops all say in the media: 'Yeah, it's great', but when it comes to actually doing it on the ground, I just ran into a brick wall."
Why the reluctance to use the new technology?
"Reputation and ego are huge in Australian policing. I don't care who solves my old cases. You do as good a job as you can with the technology you have at the time and leave it for the next generation. Over there, that would be considered an horrendous ego challenge. If the original investigator can't solve it, they just tend to put it in the archives, it never comes out again."
On a more sinister level, he says some police officers don't want DNA technology exposing miscarriages they have been involved in.
"They've got this cultural blockage, it's called noble cause corruption, when the cops think someone's done something, we haven't quite got legit evidence, we'll add a little bit to help it on its way. That's when you get these horrendous miscarriages.
"Nobody wants those to come out because you've got cops involved facing jail time, you get politicians who are going to lose elections and so on. When I first went to Sydney, the forensic guys said to me: 'We've never seen so many cops going to the property store getting rid of exhibits from their old investigations'."
One success Napper did have was convincing the police commissioner to sign off on a DNA screening operation in the cotton town of Wee Waa in 2000, when all males over 18 were asked to give a DNA sample to help catch whoever raped and bashed a 91-year-old woman. Napper says he was pilloried and called a Nazi for introducing a police state. The screening quickly flushed out the culprit, but has not been used since.
Another tool not used by Australian police is familial DNA testing, where relatives' DNA is used to catch offenders. It was successfully used in New Zealand to solve the Marie Jamieson cold case, leading police to Joseph Reekers.
In Australia it is strongly opposed by civil liberties groups, but that doesn't wash with Napper. "Familial DNA is brilliant – it's just the next level up."
He is also scathing of the fact it is not mandatory for Australian state police to put DNA profiles into the national database, meaning cases that could have easily been solved years ago just sit there. "You end up with a scenario like New South Wales at the moment, they've got over 400 unsolved homicides. I feel sorry for the families, quite frankly."
Napper went back to the UK in 2000 and back to his old job with Thames Valley police. He was then approached by the University of Western Australia to help establish a forensic centre. His Spanish wife liked the idea of living in the sun, so they returned to Australia.
Napper's two-year contract with the university became a five-year one, but then that turned "pear-shaped" as well. "We started looking at the miscarriages and nobody realised that. I was effectively told `no more ... we need to make bridges with the police and the prosecutor's office'. So I just left."
He has been involved in helping to exonerate people falsely accused of murder and rape and in 2005 helped free an Australian man on death row in a foreign country, after being called in by the man's family. Napper flew in forensic experts and the man was eventually freed. He won't give details of the charge or country.
"I'm sworn to secrecy," Napper says. "The family has never gone public. It happened at the same time as Schapelle Corby. This family thought the publicity she was getting was guaranteeing she'd get locked up for 20 years."
Napper says as long as DNA evidence is properly collected, analysed and interpreted, it is a powerful tool. "The trouble is you get these cowboy scientists, who wrongly interpret. All around the world there are scientist guns for hire, the defence will pay them lots of money. How's the average Joe jury member supposed to understand all this?"
He favours independent labs analysing samples as opposed to government agencies such as New Zealand's ESR. "Government scientists tend to see themselves as being part of the police investigation, so they always give that interpretation. It always helps to get a second opinion."
He cites a cold case he worked on in the UK, where testing of a murder victim's clothing had not turned up a DNA profile. The clothing was sent to an independent lab, where a technician noticed in a crime scene photo that the victim was wearing her T-shirt inside out. It had only been tested on the outside. It was retested, a profile found and an arrest made.
"It was under our noses. I missed it, everyone on the first review team missed it, but this young technician in his 20s picked that one little thing up that cracked the case."
His advice to police forces everywhere is to make sure their staff are trained by the best, as he has seen plenty of cases where evidence has been "cocked up".
"If you're gonna lock someone up for the rest of his days, get it right, get your evidence right, get the science of it right."
The International Justice Conference will be held in Perth, March 8-11, 2012;"The story can be found at:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/5754335/The-case-of-the-revealing-DNA
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
