Luke McGarr FFS

Forensic Identification

Luke is a qualified marks comparison / identification expert trained to UK standards and has over 36 years experience in the field, with 17 years as a senior manager. Having commenced his career in 1978 at New Scotland yard, Luke has worked as a forensic practitioner and manager in a further 3 forces, Greater Manchester, North Yorkshire and Derbyshire. During that time he has dealt with a number of high profile murder cases including the recent murder inquiry into the death of Jia Ashton in Derbyshire. Luke has also had first hand involvement into a number of Disaster Victim Identification incidents including the Airtours fire at Manchester Airport, the Waco fire USA and the Dunkeswick Air Disaster North Yorkshire.       

He was the first in the UK to migrate a Fingerprint Bureau to a Forensic Identification Unit which encompassed footwear, gloves and tyre mark identification as well as finger marks.

Until recently he was a member of the National Footwear Training Governance Group established under the NPIA Forensic 21 project to ensure that footwear evidence is fit for purpose ensuring practitioners have sufficient training and competence to accepted levels. Luke is a member of the Skills for Justice Footwear Review Board, establishing the national role descriptors and national occupational standards for footwear examiners. Until recently he was a member of the NPIA Forensic21 IDENT1 User Board, the Bureau Practitioners sub group and the NPIA Expert Network investigating probabalistic based fingerprint analysis. He was also a member of the expert group involved in the move from the non-numeric standard in 2001 and the preparatory work leading up to that change. Luke also produced the UK Fingerprint Elimination Policy.



Forensic & Business Management

Luke has over 17 years experience as a senior forensic manager. He was a member of the ACPO E Forensics regional project team

Teaching, Training & Academic

Luke has lectured at a variety of Universities and has presented at a number of national conferences. Luke is a qualified L20 Assssor and a qualified European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Assessor, an ISO9001:2008 auditor and has a diploma in Business Excellence. He is a peer reviewer for scientific papers in his field of expertise and has significant experience in working with and assessing competence against National Occupational Standards.