company, Lifecodes, which already had a track record in the American court system. The company was prepared to sell them a system, and, unlike some others, was prepared to train an Australian scientist to use it.

In July 1988, Gutowski flew to New York to train at the Lifecodes lab, taking with him some blood samples given to him by detectives from the Victorian homicide squad. They had been arguing for the use of DNA in the investigation of a brutal rape/murder in the Victorian town of Geelong and had convinced police command to try the new technology. The venture was a success, in that the scientist obtained excellent scientific results. But their use as evidence was delayed a number of years by the lack of a good comparisonno powers to take a blood sample from him without consent, but they had no intention of letting their target know he was under suspicion for rape.

Kaufman was behaving himself, undoubtedly aware he was under surveillance. A friend had found him a job fitting shower screens (a chilling thought to any woman whose bathroom he may have worked in). Apart from possessing and using heroin, he was leading a law-abiding life. He gave police no grounds to arrest him for theft, let alone for attempted rape.

Fontana had appeared on TV in news reports involving other rape investigations. So, when the house Kaufman was sharing with a girlfriend was the site of a drug raid, he wasn’t part of the team. In this raid, police seized soiled sheets, underpants