THE countdown to fatherhood is on. In a few days, Simon Franc will welcome his first child into the world. He wants that child to grow up in the safest community possible – helped, in part, by a policing innovation he has developed.
Speaking to the JEP this week, the entrepreneur reflected on his journey from helping his mother set up a forensic science company as a university student to launching Kulpa, a secure digital-evidence platform now being piloted by the States police.
Developed by his Jersey firm, Kulpa Platforms, and supported by Digital Jersey, the technology went live in the Island this week.
It enables victims and witnesses to share admissible evidence directly with investigators without surrendering their devices – a move intended to save time and free up resources for frontline policing.
Already in use by Hertfordshire Police in the UK, Mr Franc believes Kulpa can lift prosecution rates and, over time, deter offending by tackling what he sees as the main reason so many cases don’t reach court.
“A vast majority of reported crime goes unresolved – due to an evidential difficulty, a lack of evidence or, more often, a lack of verifiable evidence,” he explained.
For Mr Franc, who moved to the Island during the pandemic and has since made it his family home, the story begins with a childhood surrounded by the world of forensic science.
A forensic upbringing
“My mother was a forensic scientist for her entire career,” he explained.
Growing up close to a discipline that uses scientific methods to collect, analyse and interpret evidence for the courts shaped his understanding of technology and of evidence as a “deciding” factor in most cases.
Raised in Reading, he went on to study Management Sciences at the University of Southampton. But during his first year, his mother was made redundant – and he decided to step in.
“She rang me one day and said, ‘I’ve been made redundant. I’m too old to get another job and too young to retire – what am I going to do?’
“So I said, ‘I’ll start a company for you. You do the science, I’ll do the business.’ And so we did.”
Her job loss came after the governemnt closed the Forensic Science Service, which had previously carried out the majority of forensic work in the UK.
With many experienced scientists suddenly out of work, Mr Franc saw an opportunity to provide specialist expertise, particularly in expert witness testimony.
“There are three parts to forensic science: evidence collection, analysis, and reporting.
“That final step, of understanding what that evidence actually means in the context of the case, comes with experience.”
It was this area, he explained, that enabled their consultancy to really distinguish itself by helping courts to understand the significance of the forensic findings gathered by police.
Many private firms, particularly those acquired by private equity, focused mainly on analysis and often overlooked the importance of explaining what the results actually meant in a legal context, according to Mr Franc.
He ran the business part-time while studying, and after graduating in 2012 with First-Class Honours, he went on to follow a long-term ambition to work in investment banking and got a job with RBS.
“It was a fantastic experience – long hours, 8am to 2am most days – but I knew I wanted to build something myself,” he said.
After two years at RBS, Mr Franc returned to the family business full-time.
There, he saw again how decisive the expert interpretation of evidence could be in determining the outcome of trials – but also how many cases never reached court at all.
The biggest obstacle, he said, was the inability to properly gather, verify or present evidence.
“There’s a huge amount of crime that goes unreported. We know that.
“But actually, of the reported crime in the UK, 77% of it cannot proceed due to a lack of evidence.
“So from a forensic perspective, I sat there and thought, well, could you use technology to close that evidential gap?”
Closing the “evidential gap”
The idea to close that gap took shape three years ago, when Mr Franc assembled a small team to build a secure platform that would allow people to capture, store and share digital evidence.
The aim was to “democratise” the process of evidence collection and sharing – so that anyone could provide police or lawyers with material that would stand up in court, increasing the chances that cases could go ahead and justice could be served.
By then, Mr Franc’s life had also changed course. He met his wife, who was born in Jersey, and moved to the Island during lockdown.
“I thought, ‘I’ve never been to Jersey. The world’s getting locked down. Why don’t I just come and stay for a couple of weeks?’ And I never left. It’s such a lovely place to live – the sea everywhere – it’s just amazing.”
The couple married in 2023 and are now expecting their first child – something that, he said, has only strengthened his determination to make Jersey as safe as possible.
“It’s been a very personal ambition to get Kupla here, because I really want the Island to be a super, super safe place. Comparatively, it already is. But we do know that around 3,000 crimes are committed each year.
“I really want my children to grow up here with a super, super safe Island, and to maintain that.
“I firmly believe that by empowering people to report and by enabling police to deal with what’s being reported in a much more efficient manner, it will actually create societal change where people will just understand that if you commit a crime, you will be caught and you will be prosecuted.”
Mr Franc added: “Now we’re much better in Jersey – but in the UK, for example, the average prosecution rate is about 5%. So I commit a crime, I’ve got a 95% chance of getting away with it. Now they’re pretty good odds. So what’s my deterrent? There is none.
“So I think in the longer term, by successfully prosecuting more people, we can create that effective deterrent. People know that if they commit a crime, then someone’s probably caught them on camera. It’s almost impossible to commit a crime without leaving a digital footprint, and so digital evidence is becoming more important than fingerprints or traditional DNA.”
How the platform works
At its core, Kulpa enables users to capture, upload and securely store photographs, videos, messages or documents while preserving their forensic integrity.
The app is certified to international security and evidential standards, ensuring that the file uploaded is exactly the same as the file received by police or lawyers, with all metadata – such as time, date and location – intact. This makes the evidence legally admissible and trusted in court.
“There is currently no other platform that is certified to ensure that police have authenticated, verified digital forensic evidence,” Mr Franc explained.
Early results
Hertfordshire Constabulary was the first force to adopt Kulpa, and officers there say it has “significantly increased” the likelihood of positive outcomes for victims. More than 10,000 pieces of digital evidence have been submitted in the past year – including over 6,000 in the last four months alone.
Mr Franc recalled one case where a victim who had fled to another part of the country was able to use the platform to securely share medical evidence, photographs and videos with police.
The officer involved said the victim would not have provided this material without Kulpa, but because she did, the suspect was charged with multiple offences, including several counts of rape.
In another case, a stalking and harassment victim saw their case move from evidence upload to guilty plea in just two weeks – a process that would normally take months – because they were able to record each incident as it happened and share it immediately with police.
Encouraged by these results, Hertfordshire’s example is now being used as a model for other forces – and Mr Franc is in talks with 43 of them.
“I’m hopeful that within the next 12 to 24 months, most forces will be connected.”
Locally, Mr Franc has offered the States police six months free to run a pilot, and Digital Jersey has funded a further six.
He was keen to stress that Kulpa is an additional option for reporting crime, not a replacement.
Islanders can still contact police in person, by phone or online, but Mr Franc encouraged those able to use the platform to do so.
“You will be helping yourself, helping fellow Islanders and giving the police more time to dedicate to those for whom technology is not native or accessible,” he said.
The app is free to download or can be accessed online at kulpacloud.com.
