‘We stay on the earth’s most surveilled nation – crimes will quickly be unimaginable’

A top ex-copper who took down terrorists and murderers has revealed how tech will one day make committing crimes impossible.

Former Detective Superintendent David Swindle, once a Senior Investigating Officer with Strathclyde Police, has brought hundreds of crooks to justice, including serial killer Peter Tobin and the perpetrators of the Glasgow Airport attack of 2007. He now reviews high-profile cases abroad with his organisation Victims Abroad, helping to provide answers to families who have lost loved ones.

Swindle has 34 years of policing experience under his belt and remembers the way cases were solved in “the old days” – and it’s safe to say a lot has changed since then. “I remember it used to be that police officers did everything,” he told the Daily Star.

READ MORE: ‘Furry police officer caught dressing up as a cat in spare time as ‘it’s their fursona’

Click for more of the latest news from across the world from the Daily Star.

“You didn’t have tape recordings of suspects, you didn’t have video recording of suspects, you didn’t even have DNA. When recording of suspects came in it changed the whole thing.

“A question I’m always asked is, will artificial intelligence replace the role of the senior detective? Hopefully not, but we could make better use of artificial intelligence for some things that the police do just now.

“There are now people out there who are desperate to use artificial intelligence.”

He also claimed the UK was one of the most surveilled country in the world, meaning it is now harder and harder to get away with murder – literally. “One of the things I say is, we’re in one of the most surveilled countries in the world. We’ve got nothing to fear.

“We leave a print everywhere we go. And it will soon be impossible to commit a crime.”

The UK has a staggering 6million CCTV cameras nationwide, the fourth-most of any country in the world after China, the US and Germany. That’s approximately one camera for every 11 British residents.

Swindle joined the force in 1977 and says he has worked on “hundreds” of criminal cases. One of his most high-profile cases was killer Peter Tobin, who he brought to justice for the murder of 23-year-old student Angelica Kluk, whose body was hidden in an underground chamber beneath the floor near the confessional of a church.

Tobin was convicted of her murder in 2007 and given a life sentence with a minimum of 21 years. But Swindle realised Tobin’s age and the method used suggested he could be a serial killer who had struck before.

“[Tobin] was 60 when he killed Angelica Kluk, and that was a complicated case, so I thought, ‘He has done this before’, and I tracked back his whole life,” Swindle previously told the Star.

He created Operation Anagram to investigate the case, which led to the discovery of two more bodies – 15-year-old Vicky Hamilton and 18-year-old Dinah McNicol – at Tobin’s former home in Kent.

The discoveries led to Tobin being given a whole life order.

For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.