HOLMES

HOLMES 2 (Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) is an information technology system that is predominantly used by UK police forces for the investigation of major incidents such as serial murders and high value frauds.

The system is a single application which was developed by Unisys for the Police Information Technology Organisation under the Private Finance Initiative. It provides total compatibility and consistency between all the Police forces of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as the Royal Military Police. The name of the system is a reference to the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes.

HOLMES was introduced in 1985 and enabled law enforcement agencies to improve effectiveness and productivity in crime investigations. Like the later HOLMES 2, it was an administrative support system which was primarily designed to assist Senior Investigation Officers in their management of the complexity of investigating serious crime. To this end, HOLMES carefully processed the mass of information it was provided with and ensured that no vital clues were overlooked.

HOLMES was also used to support the Police UK Casualty Bureau providing facilities to record reported missing persons, casualties, survivors and evacuees. The application provides matching facilities to aid the reconciliation of missing persons with those involved in the incident.

But the system had crucial weaknesses, too. It provided very little support to the investigation of the crime and had only very limited opportunities to link separate incidents, especially across police force boundaries. What was needed was a solution that allowed an increased amount of information exchange combined with a better use of the information.

Against this background, the British police forces started a plan to replace the existing system with a new, improved version in 1994. The new version, HOLMES 2, overcame the known weaknesses of HOLMES. Additionally, it is more flexible for future changes and provides a speedier and more efficient access to information. The system was finally released to the first forces in 2000, while the last forces became operational in early 2004.

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