As these experts who provide insights and expertise to the police service retire or move on, there is a very real risk that they will take with them a wealth of institutional knowledge. Currently, there is no succession planning in place to retain this expertise.

Following a decline in numbers over the past decade as national police resources for major crime have been progressively squeezed, there are now only two such experts supporting police forces across the country. They are Behavioural Investigative Advisers (BIAs): Lee Rainbow and Adam Gregory.

Lee Rainbow is the professional lead for BIA. He started the role in 1999 and was the first-ever full-time ‘profiler’ in the UK. He has played a leading role in the national co-ordination of behavioural investigative advice within the UK and has contributed significantly to the enhanced professionalisation of the discipline from both a tactical and strategic perspective.

He has helped bring methodological rigour and a cognisance of decision-making fallibilities into the investigative arena, synthesising such considerations with a knowledge of and access to the appropriate research literature.

Gone are the days of subjective, unsupported musings concerning an unknown offender’s personality; gone are the lack of training and quality control mechanisms; and gone is the environment in which Senior Investigating Officers (SIOs) are seduced by abstract psychological rhetoric with no investigative utility.

Lee’s day-to-day role is to provide tailored support and advice to major crime investigations from a behavioural science perspective. This includes crime scene assessment and hypotheses generation and prioritisation, predictive profiling, case linkage analysis, media advice, and prioritisation strategies.

Since the mid-1990s Adam Gregory has been providing behavioural based advice and support to major crime investigations, enhancing investigators’ understanding of sexual and violent offenders, assisting in the generation and prioritisation of potential suspects and promoting objective effective decision making by SIOs.

The Role of a BIA

At the early stage of an investigation, a BIA will often provide a behavioural interpretation of the crime scene which helps investigators to understand what has happened, how it has happened and what the implications of this are for the likely perpetrator(s).

As more information is processed, BIA advice can become more tailored and responsive to specific aspects of the inquiry. They may provide predictive profiling advice, which gives general indications regarding the likely offender such as age range, whether they are likely to already be known to the police and if so, what sort of previous convictions they may have. This advice often gets the ball rolling and shapes the SIO’s first actions.

Prioritisation matrices of potential suspects’ characteristics may then be then generated, allowing individuals to be ranked on the basis of how well their background characteristics match what would be expected for this type of offender. This could be particularly useful in an investigation running intelligence-led DNA screening for example.

Alternatively, in the case of a complex and challenging offence scenario, the BIAs knowledge may be utilised to prioritise alternative investigative hypotheses in order to maximise police resources.

BIAs may also be asked to provide advice around cases linkage, assessing the level of behavioural similarity between two or more offences. Comparisons are drawn with other offences and bespoke data accessed to statistically assess how common or rare particular behaviours or groups of behaviour are. If there are ‘signature’ features i.e. highly individualised behaviours such as stealing something from the victim or posing the body, these may be particularly helpful in establishing links to other crimes.

All interpretations and predictions made by a BIA represent a blend of relevant academic research, bespoke behavioural data from available databases of known offenders and the BIA’s experiential knowledge.

Familial DNA

Familial DNA (fDNA) searching works on the general principle that people who are related are likely to have more DNA in common than those who are not. Searching seeks to identify individuals on the National DNA Database (NDNAD) who have a greater genetic similarity and hence a greater potential to be related to the offender.

Based on established methods used in paternity testing, familial DNA (fDNA) searching works out how likely it is that someone on the National DNA Database is related to the offender. This is calculated by considering which DNA components (or alleles) are shared between the individuals on the familial search list and the perceived offender, comparing to how frequently these occur within the general population.

The BIAs have long recognised that searching for relatives of an unknown offender through the use of fDNA should not be just a purely genetic exercise.

By harnessing relevant research and empirical data, BIAs can offer prioritisation of both an offender’s age and their likely geographic associations, which in turn allows for prediction of the most likely age and geographic associations of any relatives whose DNA may be stored on the NDNAD.

BIAs have used this improved way of prioritising suspects in more than 100 cases, including situations where human remains could not be identified, and have had great success. For instance, in Kent, they helped solve a series of historical rape cases by moving a suspect’s close relative from 94th place on the original DNA search list to the very top, simply by factoring in age and location.

Matrix Prioritisation

Forensic review of an historic series of sexual offences in Wiltshire including the sexual assault and rape of two female medical professionals generated a DNA profile for an offender which was unfortunately not matched to anyone on the National DNA Database. A comprehensive behavioural analysis of the cases by a BIA led to the development of a matrix of predicted background characteristics for the unknown offender, including his likely age, previous onvictions, geographic associations and employment.

This matrix was used by the Senior Investigating Officer to prioritise the DNA sampling of more than 800 male nominals recorded within the original investigation. The offender was identified as being within the first batch of DNA samples submitted to the forensic laboratory resulting in the rapid detection of offences that had lain undetected for almost 20 years.

Behavioural Crime Scene Assessment

A young female in Northern Ireland was subjected to an extended sexual assault in her own home following an unknown male gaining entry to her house in the early hours of the morning. The victim awoke to see a large male figure in her bedroom doorway who was wearing a balaclava and carrying a knife. The male bound and blindfolded the victim on her bed whilst making repeated demands for money and jewellery before sexually assaulting her. Despite an extensive initial investigation, no offender was identified, and a request was made for BIA assistance.

A thorough behavioural crime scene assessment by the BIA identified subtle clues in the offence to indicate that the offender may have specifically targeted the victim based on his knowledge of her and a developing fantasy of engaging with her sexually. These interpretations were combined with relevant findings from a national behavioural dataset and the research literature on indoor sexual attacks. Contrary to the investigation’s initial direction, advice from the BIA indicated that the offender was unlikely to be known to the Police but may well reside alone in close proximity to the victim. Following the generation of a DNA profile from the victim’s body, a local DNA mass screen was commenced which swiftly identified the offender who was living on a street which backed onto the victim’s home.

Hypotheses Trees

Critical to the provision of many BIA products and services is a fundamental understanding of the offence, and hence the offender(s), from a behavioural science perspective. This is achieved through Crime Scene Assessment (CSA) and hypothesis generation. This involves a thorough examination of the criminal event and generating hypotheses based upon the available information. Support for or against each hypothesis is then outlined with reference to psychological theory, relevant research findings and experiential knowledge. Any information gaps are identified to strengthen the overall process. This approach enables each hypothesis about the offence to be tested in a systematic, reasoned and objective manner. It is grounded in sound rationale and helps to mitigate common decision making errors.

For example, the following represents such a hypotheses tree in a missing person case, where the circumstances of a child’s disappearance were unknown. The supporting report comprehensively detailed each and every pathway, with reference to theoretical and empirical research findings, prioritising a sexual homicide. This laid the foundations for the generation of a predictive profile of the unknown offender and the development of a prioritisation matrix, which ranked the current suspect as number one in a list of hundreds.

The Future

Talking about their concerns for succession within his role, Lee highlights the importance of maintaining a core group of experienced professionals:

“BIAs are now an integral part of major crime investigations and have contributed to the successful identification of countless offenders. Unlike other disciplines, there are no in-force BIAs, and all advice is provided centrally through the National Crime Agency. The unique blend of skills required takes many years of training and experience and is not available ‘off the shelf’. Having recently lost another BIA, the current cadre of just two national BIAs represents a very real risk to future service provision. We need to reintroduce a trainee system where experienced BIAs train newcomers, ensuring a transfer of expertise and maintaining our vital support role”.

Adam highlights that 

“between the two BIAs in the country, we hold 60 years’ experience. The impact of us leaving without a robust succession route in place, could mean we go back to the situation which existed prior to policing having the full-time profiler role. Prior to 1999 there was no such thing as a full-time offender profiler or BIA. There were just a few individuals dotted around the country. They had day jobs and were willing to provide advice to the police on the side”.

Both agree there is a need to invest in career pathways and succession plans to ensure the continuity of these capabilities for policing.

Brilliant and important work is being done across policing by these specialists who provide essential knowledge, critical thinking and expertise to help police forces solve crimes. If this is lost, then forces will have to look elsewhere to plug this gap, stretching their resources further and potentially, impacting on how swiftly and effectively cases can be solved and criminals convicted.