Leicestershire, 1986: a young man confessed to a terrible crime — and a scientist's new test said he was innocent.
Ten items. Work through the four activities — say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words: unique · breakthrough · convict. Say the right one, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, there's a quick check (answer from memory first), then one question to discuss.
In 1984, Alec Jeffreys was a geneticist at the University of Leicester. He was not looking for a way to catch criminals. He wanted to understand how genes change from one generation to the next. His method produced an X-ray picture covered in dark bands, a little like a supermarket barcode.
On the morning of Monday 10 September 1984, he looked at the picture of one family's DNA and stopped. The patterns were not the same from person to person. Each child's bands came partly from the mother and partly from the father — but the whole pattern belonged to that child alone. Within minutes he understood what this meant. Apart from identical twins, every human being carries a pattern in their DNA that nobody else has. He later described it as a "eureka moment". He called the new test DNA fingerprinting.
The test was used for real very quickly. A boy who had been living abroad came back to join his mother in Britain, and the immigration officials did not believe that he was her son. They told the family he might be sent away. Jeffreys compared the boy's pattern with his mother's. It was a clear match. The boy stayed, and the family stayed together. It was a good, quiet beginning — and nobody yet imagined what the test would do next.
1. What was Jeffreys originally studying?
2. What did he realise on that Monday morning, and what was the first real case?
1. How genes change from one generation to the next — pure genetics, nothing to do with crime.
2. That every person (except identical twins) has a unique DNA pattern, partly inherited from each parent. The first real case proved that a boy was his mother's son, so the immigration officials let the family stay together.
In November 1983, a fifteen-year-old girl called Lynda Mann was murdered near the village of Narborough, in Leicestershire. The police found no suspect. Three years later, in July 1986, another fifteen-year-old, Dawn Ashworth, was murdered in the next village, only a few kilometres away. The police were sure that one man had committed both crimes.
This time they arrested a seventeen-year-old kitchen worker who had learning difficulties. After hours of questions he confessed to the second murder — though not the first. The police wanted to prove the two cases were connected, so they heard about the scientist in Leicester and asked Jeffreys to test samples from both crimes and from the young suspect.
Jeffreys's answer surprised everybody. The same man had committed both murders — but he was not the young man in the cell. His DNA did not match. Jeffreys could hardly believe it himself, so he repeated every test; the government's own forensic laboratory repeated them as well. The answer did not change. The young man was released. It was the first time in history that DNA evidence cleared an innocent suspect — and the real killer was still free.
1. Why did the police ask Jeffreys for help?
2. What did the results show, and what did Jeffreys do before he trusted them?
1. They wanted to prove the same man had committed both murders, and to confirm the young suspect — who had confessed to one of them — was that man.
2. One man had committed both crimes, but not the suspect, whose DNA did not match. Jeffreys repeated all the tests, and a second laboratory repeated them too, before the young man was released.
Now the police had a new problem: a killer with no name. Their next idea was bold. They asked every man aged between seventeen and thirty-four who lived or worked in three nearby villages to give a blood sample. About five thousand men agreed. The laboratory tested sample after sample, week after week. Not one of them matched.
Then, in August 1987, a woman overheard a man in a pub talking about a favour. He had given his blood sample in the name of a workmate, a baker called Colin Pitchfork, who had asked him to — and who had given him a false passport to show at the test. The woman told the police. Pitchfork was arrested in September. As soon as the laboratory tested his blood, the pattern matched the evidence from both murders. He confessed.
In January 1988, Pitchfork was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It was the first murder conviction in the world based on DNA evidence. Jeffreys was knighted in 1994. Today, DNA profiles are used in thousands of cases every year, in almost every country — to identify the guilty, to free the innocent, to find missing relatives and to name people who died long ago. It began with a barcode on an X-ray film, and a scientist who was looking for something else.
1. What did the police do after the first suspect was cleared?
2. How was Pitchfork finally caught, and what was historic about the conviction?
1. They asked about five thousand local men (aged 17 to 34) for blood samples and tested them all — with no match.
2. A woman overheard a man in a pub say he had given a sample in a workmate's name. The workmate was Pitchfork; once he was arrested, his DNA matched. His conviction was the first for murder based on DNA evidence.
This story is a chain of events across four years. English has a family of linking words that show exactly when one thing happened compared with another.
Complete each sentence with one item: as soon as · by the time · until.
1. Jeffreys did not trust the surprising result he had repeated the test.
2. the police asked for his help, the young suspect had already confessed.
3. he heard the news, the scientist rang the laboratory.
1. until 2. By the time 3. As soon as
Sentence 2 has the clue: "had already confessed" — the confession was finished first. That is the work "by the time" does.
Fill each gap with had, than or when.
1. No sooner had the laboratory finished the test the police telephoned for the results.
2. Hardly the first results arrived when the officers rushed in.
3. Hardly had Pitchfork sat down the detective asked about the passport.
1. than 2. had 3. when
The partners: no sooner… THAN, hardly… WHEN. Mixing them up ("hardly… than") is the most common mistake — even among native speakers.
Join each pair of sentences into ONE sentence using the linker in brackets. Say it, then reveal a model.
Take the toolkit into the Speak tab — Task A is the whole story as a chain of events.
A note on the record: dates and numbers follow the standard published accounts — details such as the exact number of men tested vary slightly between sources, and some accounts of the pub conversation differ in small ways.
All of it out loud, against the clock. The story is a chain of events — keep the order clear with your linkers.
Tell it as a chain of events: a geneticist and a barcode on an X-ray → the Monday morning → the boy and his mother → two murders three years apart → the confession → the test that said "wrong man" → five thousand samples → the favour in the pub → the arrest and the first DNA conviction.
Use at least four time linkers (including one by the time and one no sooner… than) and five key words (sample, suspect, confess, unique, breakthrough, convict, rule out, match, evidence, innocent).
Two rounds. Round one: you are the police officer who has just heard the results — explain to the senior detective why the confessed suspect must be released. Round two: you are the detective, who feels certain — ask your hardest questions. The test is how well you explain what the evidence does and does not prove.
A serious crime has been committed in your town and the police ask all residents to give DNA samples. Three voices: a police chief, a privacy campaigner, an ordinary resident. Take one role each — or one person plays all three — and reach a decision.
Prefer a ready-made scenario? Take one of these: