Prof fights crime while awaiting trial

A South African who is due to stand trial overseas for the mercy killing of his dying mother has been lauded for his ground-breaking contributions to fighting crime at home.

Professor Sean Davison's research has helped identify rapists and long-dead apartheid victims, and may soon be instrumental in freeing those wrongfully convicted of crimes.

The 49-year-old scientist, who heads the DNA Forensics Laboratory at the University of the Western Cape, made headlines last year when he was arrested in New Zealand for giving his mother a lethal dose of morphine. Davison stepped in after his mother, Patricia, who had terminal cancer, tried for 33 days to starve herself to death.

But while he is awaiting trial, Davison's research has been contributing to the fight for justice in South Africa.

This week, a UWC publication lauded Davison's development of a DNA rape kit as "pioneering and groundbreaking".

The scientist said: "The important aspect of the kit is that it has been standardised so that it will produce the same accuracy of result when used in any laboratory in the world."

The kit, which should be commercially available in about a year's time, consists of a small box containing a number of tubes of specific reagents - substances that may cause a chemical reaction - and instructions on how to use it.

It will help to identify individuals through their Y-chromosomes, and will be especially useful in identifying multiple perpetrators in cases of gang rape.

The new technology will also help exclude innocent men suspected of rape.

Professor Brian O' Connell, the university's rector, said: "This new DNA forensic rape kit has greatly advanced our ability to distinguish between perpetrators and so to bring them to justice. The kit has been tested and found highly effective among South Africa's different population groups."

Davison said they were discussing ways of implementing the technology with SAPS.

He also hopes to launch an "Innocent Project" soon in South Africa. Based on a similar scheme in the US, it will test the DNA of prisoners to see if they have been wrongfully prosecuted.

According to its official website, the US Innocence Project has exonerated 273 prisoners through DNA testing since its inception in 1992.

Meanwhile, Davison's own freedom hangs in the balance. His fate will be decided by a jury when his trial begins in the Dunedin High Court next month.

He was arrested in September last year while visiting relatives in New Zealand.

In December, the Dunedin High Court ruled that Davison's bail conditions be changed, effectively allowing him to return to his young family in Cape Town until he stands trial.

The scientist cut his teeth analysing mitochondrial DNA - usually preserved in highly degraded material such as hair and bones - identifying human remains for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Missing Persons Task Team.

Thanks to Davison's research, Looksmart Ngudle, a former Western Cape commander of the ANC's military wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, had a proper burial 45 years after his body was dumped in an unmarked grave. Ngudle, one of the first recorded deaths in detention, was found hanged in his cell in Pretoria in 1963.

"A femur bone was sent to our laboratory at UWC for genotyping along with three family reference samples ..." wrote Davison in a study published in the African Journal of Biotechnology. "Following the confirmation that the bones exhumed were those of Looksmart Ngudle, they were returned to his family for burial in May 2007."