A solicitor renowned for his work freeing the wrongly convicted Guildford Four has asked the Law Society to become a ‘major player’ in the campaign to stop the government’s proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service (FSS).

Law Society human rights committee member Alastair Logan is concerned that the FSS, which the government says loses £2m a month, is due to close in March 2012. He said the service has advanced the science of crime detection more than any other similar body in the world and is held in high repute internationally. ‘The cold case reviews have shown how often we have managed to convict the innocent,’ he said. ‘Forensic science also sometimes provides the only evidence to identify and convict the guilty.’

He said it is important that this expertise is not lost and that the service’s material and records are preserved.

Logan called on the Law Society ‘to make clear publicly and loudly’ that closing the FSS is ‘a denial of justice’.

Two members of the Law Society Council - Sara Chandler and Malcolm Fowler - shared their concerns about the closure of the service with chief executive Desmond Hudson during this month’s council meeting. Fowler and Chandler said that Hudson agreed to ‘review the stance we have taken’ over the FSS.

Hudson said: ‘Our focus is to ensure that the criminal justice system is served by a reliable and cost-efficient forensic service. Whether such a body is in the public or private sector is not a matter for the Law Society.’