News
17-June-2009 - LGC Forensics chosen to
identify World War I soldiers
LGC Forensics announces that it is to carry out novel DNA
testing on British and Australian troops buried in WW1 mass graves
in Northern France
LGC Forensics, the UK’s leading independent
forensic science provider, is proud to announce that the Fromelles
Management Board, acting on behalf of the British and Australian
governments, has selected the company as a partner to combine
forensic archaeology, anthropology and advanced DNA technology to
help identify the bodies of soldiers who fell at the battle of
Fromelles in Northern France in 1916.
Over 5,000 Australian, and more than 1,500
British troops were lost (killed or wounded and missing in action)
during the battle on 19 July 1916 as a result of German gunfire. Up
to 400 soldiers are thought to have been buried without their dog
tags in several mass graves in a site known as Pheasant Wood near
the village of Fromelles.
Now, over 90 years after the WW1 battle, a
complex forensic operation is being carried out to determine, where
possible, the identity of the soldiers’ remains. Each soldier
will be reburied within a dedicated new military cemetery - finally
laid to rest with the dignity they deserve. LGC Forensics will
initially carry out DNA tests on a number of bodies taken from two
of the graves to determine if viable DNA profiles can be obtained
from them.
Steve Allen, Managing Director of LGC
Forensics, commented: “LGC is extremely proud to have been
selected by the Fromelles Management Board for such a prestigious
project. This is about giving these soldiers the dignity and
recognition their sacrifice deserves. This will be the first time
that anything quite like this has been attempted and it represents
a substantial challenge. In particular, obtaining DNA
profiles from bodies that have been buried for nearly a century has
never been attempted on this scale before. But LGC Forensics
is no stranger to challenges, having developed an excellent
reputation as a forensic service provider including having
discovered the critical evidence in a number of high profile
cases.
The company’s forensic anthropologists and DNA
experts will work closely together to help to identify the best
samples from which to extract the DNA. If viable DNA profiles are
generated from these, they will be compared with DNA profiles
supplied by descendants of the war dead, who have come forward from
both Australia and Britain. The hope is that by conducting such
familial DNA comparisons, the identity of the unknown soldiers can
be established. Assuming this initial work is a success then LGC
Forensics will begin carrying out DNA tests on the remaining bodies
buried at Pheasant Wood.
Major General Matthew Sykes from the UK
Ministry of Defence said: “I am delighted that LGC Forensics
has been appointed to help in the identification process. The
complexity of their work will be made all the more difficult by the
passage of time, but I very much hope that they will be able to
make some positive matches. For that to happen, however, we
need more families who believe they may be connected to British or
Australian soldiers who died at Fromelles to come forward and I
urge them to do so.”
The pilot project is due to be completed in
June and, if successful, the whole project is will be completed in
time for next year’s 94th anniversary of the battle in
July.
-Ends-
About LGC Forensics
LGC Forensics is the division of LGC
with specific expertise in a broad range of forensic services, to
address the simplest to the most complex of cases, in major crime.
We provide casework and analytical services in DNA techniques,
controlled drugs, toxicology, ecology, questioned documents,
digital crime, firearms and ballistics and forensic pathology in
support of modern policing.
With eight forensic laboratories across the
UK and two in Germany, LGC Forensics is able to provide a range of
bespoke services at a local level, therefore attracting a wide
variety of customers drawn from police forces and other law
enforcement agencies, HM Coroners, government departments, defence
lawyers, as well as private corporations and individuals.
LGC Forensics has access to a wide range of
other specialist teams across the LGC Group including a close
working relationship with the largest group of Home Office
Pathologists, Forensic Pathology Services and a unique Victim
Identification and Mass Fatalities Team. LGC Forensics laboratories
are located in Teddington (Middlesex), Bromsgrove (Worcestershire),
Culham (Oxfordshire), St. Neots (Cambridgeshire) Runcorn and Risley
(Cheshire), Tamworth (Staffordshire), with a specialist firearms
facility in Leeds. German operations are located in Cologne and
Berlin
Biography: Dr Nicholas
Márquez-Grant
Dr Nicholas Márquez-Grant is a
Specialist Forensic Examiner in Anthropology and Archaeology within
the Ecology, Victim Identification and Mass Fatalities Unit at LGC
Forensics. Having worked on human skeletal remains from
archaeological sites for over 10 years, he has had considerable
experience in the excavation and study of cremated and unburnt bone
from prehistory to the present day and from a variety of
geographical areas in particular Britain, Spain, Portugal and
France. He has taught biological anthropology since 2001 at the
University of Oxford where he was awarded his doctoral degree in
2006 on the subject of reconstructing living conditions and health
status from skeletal populations from Spain. He has worked as a
commercial archaeologist and anthropologist for several years and
is currently actively engaged in several research projects and
publications. Prior to moving to LGC Forensics, his work in Oxford
Archaeology culminated in the collaborative publication on a Roman
mass grave (A. Simmonds, N. Márquez-Grant, L. Loe, Life and
Death in a Roman City: Excavation of a Roman Cemetery with a Mass
Grave at 120-122 London Road, Gloucester, 2008). Due to his
experience in DNA sampling of human remains and his archaeological
and forensic background, Nicholas’ role in the Fromelles project is
to be LGC Forensics’ field representative, liaising with the LGC
Forensics DNA laboratory in London and the archaeologists and
anthropologists working in France.
Notes to
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