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Hello I'm Claudia Hammond and welcome broadcasts. Every day this week we'll be bringing you in-depth analysis of the science behind the news.

Today I'm putting fingerprints on trial, looking at the science behind fingerprinting

and exploring the claim that it's no longer the reliable forensic

tool it once was.

In fact, say critics, research has shown fingerprinting to be fallible, subjective and lacking in scientific rigor.

In short, they say, it's in need of urgent reform.

I'll be talking to a man at the center of a high-profile fingerprint scandal that could have cost him his life and to

scientists attempting to uncover the truth behind fingerprinting mythology.

But first roll back the clock to 1936 when fingerprinting was seen as the

forensic gold standard. Is the fingerprint system infallible? Yes,

absolutely. The chance of two prints being identical is billions to one against.

No two fingerprints taken from different fingers have ever been found to be identical.

Historically fingerprint evidence has been treated both by the courts and by the public more

generally as nearly indisputable.

Jennifer Manukin is professor of law at the University of California Los Angeles.

It's really been almost the queen of forensic science. It's been thought of as

extremely certain as a kind of evidence that really could trump many other sorts of

evidence. Never mind what the witness says. if the witness says they weren't there,

but their fingerprint shows that they were, that was thought to be stronger than any other

...