Secret identities were chief weapon in fight against gun gangs / Times, 25 June 2008
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4207777.ece
Richard Ford and Sean O’Neill
"Fifteen hundred people have been moved to safe houses in the past three years as part of a national service to protect witnesses facing intimidation, according to latest government figures. The numbers reflect a problem that has been growing in recent years as increasing numbers of criminals resort to threats against witnesses in an attempt to escape justice. A national witness mobility service has rehoused witnesses and their families safely in about 500 cases, involving 1,500 people, since 2005. The need for such a service is highlighted by figures suggesting that a third of vulnerable witnesses would have been unwilling to give their testimony without special measures, such as video links or screens to obscure them from the defendant, being in place."