Beardy boffin who caught a killer — and changed the world for ever
We throw away so much of our privacy online these days, it’s a puzzle that people don’t post their DNA profiles alongside their dating status and photos of their breakfast on Facebook and twitter.
Imagine the benefits. Nosy relatives could cross- check us to make sure that our parents really are who we think they are. Life insurance companies could coldcall us to offer discounts, based on the genetic probability that we’re not about to drop dead (or lastminute deals if we are).
It sounds appalling, of course — but so does the idea of a telephone in your pocket, so that wherever you go, from the pub to the theatre and even on the beach, you are never going to be guaranteed a moment’s peace again in your entire life. And we all got used to that version of hell pretty quickly.
If everyone did put their DNA online, police work would be a doddle. All the murder squad would have to do is run a quick Google search, make an arrest and get back to their crossword puzzles. there’d be an app for it within two days.
But it’s barely 30 years since the concept of genetic fingerprints was unknown. Code Of A Killer (ItV), the first of a two- part drama, told the true story of the British scientist who made the breakthrough and the grisly double murder that triggered it.
John Simm played university boffin Alec Jeffreys, who these days can add the titles of both knight and professor to his name, but who back in 1983 was a lecturer at Leicester Uni supplementing his research work with lectures to undergrads.
Simm gave him a touch of the David Bellamys, with a bushy beard and a fruity voice, leaping around the lecture stage like it was a trampoline. the nuanced script, however, made it clear that this was no lovable eccentric, but a driven, obsessive character.
he couldn’t bear to drag himself away from the microscope long enough to give a colleague a civil answer, let alone speak to his wife on the phone, and though he doted on his children, he was rarely home for bedtime stories.
when his work made its first impact, in an immigration fight, Simm had a telling line. Instead of congratulating his clients and telling them they’d won, he saw the victory as all his: ‘the court has accepted my findings,’ he announced.
David threlfall, unrecognisable from his role last week as Noah in the Ark, was the sour-faced detective on a personal mission to catch the maniac who had raped and murdered two teenage girls.
Unlike so many detective dramas, Code of A Killer managed to avoid mortuary porn. there was no naked body on a morgue slab.
In fact, we never saw the victims — just threlfall’s face as he stared down at the corpses, his mouth twisting in anger and disgust. that was so much more chilling.
Fiona Bruce was chasing clues of her own in Antiques Roadshow Detectives (BBC2), a new series running every evening this week. this spin- off from the longrunning Sunday night favourite investigates the background to some of the show’s most interesting finds, starting with a painted shield, or escutcheon, from oliver Cromwell’s funeral procession.
Instead of heading straight to the forensics lab, however, to get this antique carbon-dated, Fiona had the smart idea of taking its owner, Annie, to an auction, where they could gauge the value of Cromwellian memorabilia.
that was an eye- opener: the brass plaque from the Lord Protector’s coffin was going under the hammer at Sotheby’s, with a guide price of £12,000. within minutes, the bidding had rocketed to five times that figure, and it went for 60 grand.
this raises a knotty legal question. the courts can confiscate the proceeds of crime, and you don’t get much more criminal than the man who led an armed coup in parliament, waged civil war for years and then fixed the trial to have the king’s head chopped off.
Surely anything of Cromwell’s must belong to the nation now. hand it over, Fiona — or are you waiting for DNA evidence?