Ken Williams was a forensic photographer at the Surrey Police who introduced changes to the way crimes are detected and evidence collected. Many of the techniques, despite the emergence of DNA profiling and other high-tech analysis, remain in use many decades after Williams assisted with their development.
Williams probably attended more major crime scenes than any of his immediate contemporaries. Thanks to the techniques that he developed, many families who lost loved ones as a result of violent crime have drawn comfort from the fulfilment of judicial process.
Williams was an innovator whose work with fingerprints was especially admired. He introduced processes that improved efficiency in the forensic photography and chemical treatment units at the Surrey force. He also championed a system for the application of a physical developer, a chemical treatment used to reveal finger marking that would have been otherwise invisible to the naked eye.
Advertisement
In addition, he developed a process for producing high-quality photographic prints from marks lifted from crime scenes using the specular reflection of light. The process has now been superseded, but at the time it was a significant asset in crime detection. Williams also introduced specialist light source and ultraviolet photography techniques to Surrey Police for the photographic recovery of injuries and evidence such as body fluids that may have escaped detection.
Born into modest surroundings in 1939 in West Sussex, he moved to Surrey at the age of 5 and became a police cadet with the Surrey force, serving in the photographic department at police headquarters in Guildford, at 15.
Advertisement
At 19 his National Service cemented his love of photography as he was posted to the photographic department of military intelligence at Chelsea Barracks. After a short employment with a local photographer, he returned to the photographic department at Surrey Police headquarters.
Williams served with the Surrey force for more than 40 years. During this time, he received numerous commendations for his work on many high-profile cases. One highlight was receiving plaudits for his contribution in the investigation of the murder of Maatje Tamboezer in 1986. After a large-scale investigation by Surrey Police, in 1988, John Duffy from Hampstead, North London, was given six life sentences for a number of rapes and sex attacks, and for the Tamboezer murder and that of Alison Day, a 19-year-old office worker who was murdered in East London in 1985. Duffy, whose association with the so-called railway murders led to one of the biggest forensic-led police investigations since the Yorkshire Ripper case, is one of only two dozen prisoners who have been told that they will never be released, because of what police described as the extreme nature of the offences.
Surrey Police have been at the forefront of forensic science and crime detection for many years, a significant extent of which is attributable to Williams’s influence in the design and layout of the forensic photography and chemical treatment units in the purpose built Surrey Police scientific support building, which opened in June 1998.
Advertisement
Williams ensured that Surrey Police’s forensic photography and imaging unit was at the forefront of technology advances. In addition to his forensic work, he also introduced video and video-stills technology to assist major investigations by making footage immediately available for investigation teams to use in briefings. He was also responsible for the introduction of digital cameras to the unit.
Williams is survived by his wife and two sons.
Advertisement
Ken Williams, forensic photographer, was born on February 13, 1939. He died of complications related to myelofibrosis, on July 23, 2009, aged 70