A new TV drama will highlight the pivotal role a solicitor at the University’s law clinic played in the pioneering of DNA fingerprinting in legal cases.
The two-part ITV drama Code of a Killer, being screened on 6 and 13 April, tells the story of how Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys’ DNA fingerprinting technique came to be used for the first time in a criminal court case.
Solicitor Sheona York, who was appointed to the University’s Kent Law Clinic in 2012, was working on an immigration case in 1985 when she contacted Sir Alec to request his help with the use of his then new DNA technique.
Sheona York, who had read about the DNA fingerprinting development in a newspaper article, successfully employed Sir Alec’s technique in the immigration case – thus establishing its use as legally unassailable.
Sir Alec, who was working as a scientist at the University of Leicester at the time, subsequently assisted the police in a murder case that became famous for the first use of the technique in a criminal trial.
Sheona York, who was invited to view the drama at a special preview screening, is portrayed in one crucial scene talking to Sir Alec as they both discuss what they call ‘the Home Office culture of disbelief’ over the use of DNA fingerprinting.
Sheona York is a specialist in immigration and asylum cases at Kent Law Clinic, where she is also involved in teaching, research and policy work. Together with Clinic research assistant Richard Warren, she published the research report How children become failed asylum-seekers in May 2014, which sought to improve outcomes for children seeking asylum in the UK.