The Lord Advocate, Frank Mulholland QC, has announced plans to create a new unit to assist the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and the police with unsolved murders and other serious crimes in Scotland.
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The Lord Advocate said:
“Justice will pursue down the years those who have so far evaded detection for their crimes. The passage of time should be no protection. We will not give up and will seek to identify the perpetrator using new forensic and other investigation techniques and prosecute them for their crimes.
“Our specialist unit will work with local prosecutors and the police to identify unsolved murders for renewed investigation.”
For further information on the new cold case unit in Scotland, see the recent blog post of McSporrans.
Separately, it is pertinent to mention a cold case unit in its own right from the United States. US cold case expert Vidster has operated a blawg called “Defrosting Cold Cases” for years with a twitter account @Vidocq_CC set up exclusively to help solve cold cases. The hashtag #cclivechat is used mainly on Fridays between noon-1pm EST (5-6pm GMT).
On the Defrosting Cold Cases About page, Vidster describes himself as a lawyer with a long history in the fields of criminology and human rights defense.
“I have lived in many countries, speak a handful of languages, and have worked for many different organizations, NGOs, and universities. No matter where I worked, one theme that kept coming back in my work was “why.” Why is the threshold to lie so low for some and mountainous for others? Why do some make this decision while others under the same circumstances do better? I was fascinated so I specialized in criminology. Human rights defense came later but to me, it came naturally.”
For anyone looking to join the discussion on cold cases, there is an opportunity to join the discussion via social media. As V notes on his homepage http://www.defrostingcoldcases.com/, “Please read the cases and maybe you will be the one to help solve them or, participate in our cold case live chat on Fridays from noon-1pm EST! [5-6pm GMT]
Every chat, we are joined by DNA experts, cops, ex-cops, authors, cold case investigators, and anyone else interested in helping solve cold cases worldwide. Join us (follow hashtag #cclivechat) and see where you can help.”
Vidster describes the Scottish cold case unit announcement as “fantastic news”. Hopefully this encourages more people like him to engage both offline and online via social media and, in particular, it is hoped that further collaboration will occur between cold case squads from the US and Scotland, and indeed with the rest of the UK and the world for the interests of justice.
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