Government ‘too slow’ to act in identifjring tsunami bodies Page 1 of 2

THE SCOTSMAN

Government ‘too slow’ to act in identifying tsunami bodies

MICHAEL BLACKLEY

THE government failed to act on warnings that immediate action must be taken to identify the bodies of British victims of the tsunami disaster, a Scottish-based team of senior forensic scientists have claimed.

Professor Sue Black, who set up the government-backed Centre for International Forensic Assistance (CIFA) with her husband, Tom Black, said their offers of assistance were ignored.

They repeatedly told Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Home Office that the failure to take instant action would make the job of identifying bodies more difficult.

Mrs Black, who is also head of the department of anatomy and forensic anthropology at the University of Dundee, said they had warned that a “vital window” to identify British victims was closing in the days after the disaster. But the response from government was “demeaning silence”.

Mr Slack, a director of CIFA, said: “They did have a window in terms of the identification of westerners which wasn’t seized upon.

“We sent letters to the Foreign Office and Home Office and No 10 saying ‘please act and act now’. We had to two e-mails back from low civil servants - a holding response.

“People who work in such fields know that in heat and water the identification window is very narrow.

“By not acting quickly the chance was missed. Vital time was lost.”

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said on Friday that the likely British death toll had risen to 441, with only 50 identified. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is expected to provide an updated figure to MPs later today.

Mrs Black has travelled to Phuket in Thailand to work for Kenyon International Emergency Services in helping identify the dead.

She arrived on 31 December and said an enormous task lay ahead. When she arrived, five days after the disaster, there were no body bags and bodies were decomposing in the sun.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office denied that action had been taken too late, and said a team of 50 officers from the Metropolitan Police flew out on 30 December. A spokeswoman said: “The main reason we didn’t take up the offer from CIFA was because concentrating on the deployment of British police officers was a priority.”

Last week, forensic experts had to start digging up corpses after it emerged many bodies of victims had been mislabelled in the rush to bury the dead after the disaster.

Dr Adrian Linacre, a senior lecturer in forensic science at Strathclyde University, said that by the time Britain sent police officers to the area on 30 December, many of the bodies would have become unrecognisable.

He said: “Because of the temperature and humidity, the skin will have changed dramatically. Within five or six days it will be almost impossible for even a brother or mother to recognise a body.

“Once the body is unrecognisable, non-forensic techniques are required, such as DNA-testing. To identify everyone will never happen.”