The pivotal role Kent Law Clinic Solicitor Sheona York played in employing DNA fingerprinting for the first time in legal proceedings is depicted in a new ITV drama, Code of a Killer.
Sheona contacted Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, the inventor of DNA fingerprinting technique, to request his support with an immigration case she was working on in 1985. Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys was working as a scientist at Leicester University at the time.
Code of a Killer features Sheona’s ground-breaking request as it tells the story of the subsequent and dramatic use of DNA fingerprinting in a criminal court case for the first time by Detective Chief Superintendent David Baker.
Sheona, who was invited to view the drama at a special preview screening in Leicester earlier this week, said: ‘The film Code of a killer is excellent. A measured, careful and respectful (and also dramatic) exposition of the discovery of the DNA fingerprinting technique, against a backdrop of a desperate Leicestershire police force trying to find the perpetrator of 2 rapes and murders.
‘The film very effectively portrays the excitement and also the desperation of Alec Jeffreys as he struggled with both the science and the practicalities of isolating individuals’ unique DNA in a readable way: supported with wry good humour and exasperation by his wife Sue and his colleagues. Also brilliantly portrayed is the heartbreak of the families of the young women who were murdered, and the determination of the police officer in charge of the investigation, David Baker, who had to fight hard for the resources necessary to use the new scientific technique to eliminate thousands of local men from the murder enquiry.
‘A small but essential part of this story is my request to Alec Jeffreys in 1985 to help in an immigration case, after I had read in the Guardian about his discovery – and it was his help in my immigration case which established the technique as practicable and also legally unassailable. To my great pleasure, there is a scene in which I speak to Alec about the need to combat “the Home Office culture of disbelief.”’
The drama has been written with the full knowledge and input of retired Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys and stars John Simm as the British geneticist. Actor David Threlfall also stars as former Detective Chief Superintendent David Baker.
Part one of the two-part drama made by World Productions will be shown on Monday 6 April at 9pm with the second part following a week later.
Sheona York is a specialist in immigration and asylum cases, working at Kent Law Clinic where she is also involved in teaching, research and policy work.
Together with Clinic research assistant Richard Warren, she published a research report How children become ‘failed asylum-seekers’ in May 2014 which sought to improve outcomes for children seeking asylum in the UK.
A qualified solicitor, she practised for many years at Hammersmith & Fulham Community Law Centre, specialising in immigration, asylum, asylum support and public law, then moving to Immigration Advisory Service as Principal Legal Officer, specialising in public law immigration and asylum cases including many emergency judicial reviews against removals.
Most recently she worked as Legal Officer at Rights of Women, providing legal advice to individual women and carrying out training and workshops for women with insecure immigration status and specialist organisations assisting them.