An American DNA expert could make a fortune if a judge next week rules his controversial evidence is admissible in court, the Massereene murder trial has heard.
Dr Mark Perlin, who testified for the prosecution, admitted if his evidence is accepted he could sell his computer-based forensics system to laboratories in the UK for up to $300,000 a go.
But Perlin insisted he'd no financial motive in giving evidence clearly linking leading Lurgan republican Colin Duffy and Brian Shivers to the getaway car used in the murder of two British soldiers.
Sappers Mark Quinsey (23) and Patrick Azimkar (21) were gunned down in the ruthless dissident republican attack outside Massereene army barracks. Supporters of the accused packed the public gallery in Antrim Crown Court.
But the dead soldiers' families weren't there. Friends said they were so traumatised by hearing the horrors of their sons' deaths last week that they mightn't return until the verdict.
It was a crux week for the prosecution who presented the nuts and bolts of their case – the DNA evidence – on which Duffy or Shivers will be jailed or freed.
The big battle was between blunt Belfast-based barrister Barry McDonald and Dr Perlin, the tall, bearded and often wordy American academic who invented the 'True Allele' system.
Perlin's evidence was at first confident and impressive. He said DNA from a mobile phone found in the getaway car was six billion times more likely to come from Shivers than anyone else. He was even more damning about Duffy – a sample from the passenger seat belt buckle was six trillion times more likely to be his than another person's.
The scale of his figures caused loud gasps in court. Perlin explained how the system he'd developed provided more accurate results than traditional DNA analysis. It had helped identify the charred remains of 9/11 victims and was now hailed across the world.
Barry McDonald, representing Duffy, asked Perlin how many Twin Towers' victims' remains his system had identified. Perlin couldn't give a number.
It then emerged only New York state forensic science commission had approved his system. "One out of 50 states in your own country!" McDonald declared.
"All these (others) are just very slow to catch on, aren't they?" the barrister remarked. "Your system is operating in the nanosphere. There's a raging controversy that is still raging about your methods." Perlin strenuously defended his system.
The court heard only 10 laboratories in the world had bought True Allele and Perlin's evidence had been admitted in just two American trials – in his home state of Pennsylvania.
It's never been accepted in an Irish or British court – it was deemed inadmissible in a case against an animal rights' activist in Oxford last year.
McDonald suggested the American was giving evidence as both an expert witness and a businessman trying to flog his product: "I don't mean to be disparaging Dr Perlin, but this (Massereene) case really represents a marketing opportunity for you?" he asked.
If Mr Justice Hart makes the landmark decision of admitting Perlin's evidence for the first time in a British court, the American's business would really "take off", McDonald claimed.
Perlin agreed a "financial benefit" would be "nice" but it wasn't his motivation. He was "fulfilling a vision to get my technology to the world" and wanted to provide UK citizens with "a scientific tool to exonerate innocent and convict guilty people".
Under rigorous cross-examination, Perlin's responses became incredibly lengthy and philosophical. "I'm tempted to ask for permission to sit down during these answers!" McDonald quipped.
After one answer, which wandered from classical physics to quantum mechanics, McDonald joked, "Could you repeat that?" Even the academic – along with most of the court – laughed.
The tip of a latex glove containing Duffy's DNA, allegedly found in the getaway car, is at the centre of the case against the prominent republican. Bomb squad officer Alan Ness, the first person to examine the car after it was abandoned on the Ranaghan Road, told the court he'd seen other items inside and photographed them but the glove "certainly wasn't in my view".
Neither was it in another set of 30 photographs taken for the PSNI at the scene. The first photographs in which it appeared were taken the next day at a police forensics' garage which the defence found very unusual.
PSNI crime scenes investigator, John Carson, said he'd also seen the glove tip in the car on Ranaghan Road but hadn't put it in his original statement. "I didn't think it relevant," he said. He admitted he hadn't made a statement about seeing the glove tip until Monday – two and a half years after the Massereene murders.
