Criminals who leave footprints behind when committing crimes will be more likely to get caught from next month when a national database of footwear evidence is launched.
Police officers will be able to compare marks left by shoes and boots at crime scenes with records taken from those arrested on suspicion of previous offences.
The Footwear Intelligence Technology system - the first of its kind - will speed up the traditional linking of footprint evidence to individuals through a centralised computer base.
As well as using shoe types and sizes to identify suspects, it will also record information on the angle of footfall and weight distribution – solving the problem of suspects claiming to have lent their footwear to others.
Experts at the Forensic Science Service who are developing the database have called it "Cinderella analysis".
Partial or full footprints are thought to be left behind at close to 40 per cent of crime scenes and the markings are behind only DNA and blood as the most frequently collected evidence type.
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