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The new DNA17 methods are a significant improvement in the science but often not in the provision of meaningful evidence in criminal cases. Their increased sensitivity frequently increases the range of attribution and transfer possibilities, which then weakens the evidential value when the prosecution are inferring that the result could only be explained by the allegations. They are however, much better for other purposes, such as intelligence, missing persons, identifying remains and searching across European databases. Likewise the new statistical methods represent a significant increase in the degree of sophistication applied to complex mixed DNA profiles, but they produce variable results. At the same time Streamlined Forensic Reporting is not just uninformative but a positive hindrance, requiring defence lawyers to accept a DNA profile result at face value, or seek advice on its meaning in order to meet the requirement to 'identify the real issues'. The implementation of these new forensic methods in DNA profiling mean that defence lawyers can no longer rely on previous understanding when faced with a prosecution "DNA match".

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