Miscarriages of justice are likely to happen because courts are dumbing down complex statistics, one of Britain’s leading forensic scientists has warned.
Peter Gill, a pioneer of DNA profiling, has alerted the Home Office to a series of trials in which judges allowed expert witnesses to give a subjective summary of complex DNA evidence in place of a robust statistical analysis.
The departure from accepted scientific standards risks misleading the jury over the strength of evidence at a time when more cases are hingeing on traces of DNA found at crime scenes, he said.
“I’m convinced that miscarriages of justice will occur, because of the unscientific methods being used to convict people,” said Professor Gill, who is based at the