Expert Witness

  The second pair of trainers had a simple sole pattern of rhomboids and the structure of the uppers was completely different from the first pair.

  As a result of my examination, I determined that the bruises on the head of the deceased could have been made by footwear attributed to the first defendant but the problem was that the laboratory database wasn’t big enough to draw any real conclusions. Of significance in this case was the fact that the footwear had never been seen before by either the prosecution expert or me and the first defendant had already accepted that he’d been with the deceased and the co-defendant on the night in question. It came down to the likelihood of the marks being caused to the head of the deceased by either the first co-defendant or by someone else wearing similar shoes who happened to come along that same evening and kick the victim to death.

  It was far more likely to have been the first defendant rather than someone at random so it came down to the fact that the first defendant said that even if he had been present while the deceased was on the ground, he might only have knocked his head with his foot by mistake and if he did knock his head by mistake, he only did it once.

  This defence is kind of like the naughty schoolboy approach, of which a colleague of mine is particularly fond, which says, I wasn’t there when the window was broken but if I was then I didn’t do it but if I did do it then it was an accident. I guess it’s about covering all bases.

  I think what you should do now is go and look at the soles of some shoes.

  Sock prints in casework are somewhat unusual because sock prints are usually just a general outline of the foot that made them. If people are in someone else’s house when they shouldn’t be, they’re usually wearing some sort of footwear. The most memorable sock-print cases for me have involved people being in a property when they have been invited or when they lived there. In normal circumstances, finding the sock prints of someone who lives in a given house isn’t something likely to be of great interest. When it does get interesting is when the socks have some thing on them that makes them a little unusual, such as blood.

  The two most interesting cases I can describe both relate to murders and both relate to bloodied sock prints deposited on floors.

  The circumstances of the first case were that a woman and her boy friend had her boy friend’s friend staying in their home with them. They had all been out drinking and when they came home, the woman ended up dead on the kitchen floor, stabbed with a kitchen knife. The boy friend (let’s call him Mr Boy friend) and his mate (we can call him Mr Mate) were both charged with murder and each blamed the other for the woman’s death. Mr Mate said that Mr Boy friend and his girlfriend had gone back to the house on their own and when he arrived at the house the woman was already dead.

  The interesting thing at the crime scene was that the woman was dead on the kitchen floor and two sets of bloodied sock prints could be seen tracking through the house. One set was fairly average in size and the other was markedly larger. Mr Mate said that the marks couldn’t have been made by him and they therefore must have been made by the deceased and her boy friend. That was relatively easy to sort out because the deceased had small feet and even allowing for the fact that her test foot impressions had been made by rolling ink onto her feet and pressing her inked feet onto paper while she was lying on her back in the mortuary, her feet couldn’t have made either sets of sock prints. So who did leave them?

  Each of the defendants was asked to make test impressions, which involved them wearing socks, walking onto ink and then walking down a long sheet of paper. One set of prints in the house matched the size, emplacement and gait of Mr Boy friend. The other set matched Mr Mate. Mr Mate strongly denied any involvement but unfortunately for him, he had a peculiar arrangement of toes and foot outline. We knew this because a forensic podiatrist had taken a look at the test impressions and told us.

  Once Mr Mate accepted that his bloodied sock prints were in the house he tried to explain them away by saying he returned to the house after Mr Boy friend had killed the woman and he, Mr Mate, had accidentally walked in some of her blood while he was trying to ring the police, which he didn’t manage to do. Unfortunately, what really did it for Mr Mate was the fact that he couldn’t explain why he’d taken off his shoes and the trail of sock prints didn’t lead to the telephone — this was in the days before mobile phones were widely available. Instead, the prints led from around the deceased out into the hall, back into the kitchen, across the kitchen floor, onto the kitchen work top, out through the kitchen window, onto the outside windowsill, down the garden path, through the side gate, down the side passageway and along the pavement away from the house. Mr Mate was found guilty of murder for more reasons than just the sock-print evidence, but the prints helped. Mr Boy friend was also involved with the incident and his sock prints related to how he had moved around after the woman had bled to death.

  Another case in which I was involved need not be anonymous because it is that of David Bain. The sock-print aspect of the case related to the size of print a foot might make if it were clad in a sock that then walked in blood. It was accepted by the Crown and defence that whoever murdered the mother, two daughters and son was the same person who deposited bloodied sock prints in one of the rooms and part of the hallway of the house.

  My role was relatively simple: to undertake tests with David Bain’s socked feet to determine what size prints his feet would make after he walked in blood and after those marks had been enhanced with the same chemical used at the crime scene in 1994 by the Crown’s expert. This evidence was important in the retrial because the Privy Council had referred to the sock-print evidence as being one of the reasons they considered a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.

  By way of background, a forensic scientist and a police officer examined the carpets for the presence of blood. They detected a number of bloodied sock prints, made by a right foot, on the carpet leading from Stephen Bain’s room, into Margaret Bain’s room, tracking out into the hallway. The carpet on which the sock prints were located was not retained and as far as we know it went up in smoke when the house was burnt down.

  The sock prints were on a dark-coloured carpet and a chemical called luminol was used to enhance them. Luminol reacts with iron in blood, causing a blue alien-like glow that can last for a few minutes. In fact, when I was measuring the test sock prints, I remember glancing around the floor of the laboratory at the eerie scene of disembodied prints heading in all different directions and being surprised at how long the glow lasted. As the glow fades after five minutes or so, it’s one of those lights that looks brighter from the corner of your eye.

  Some of the sock prints at Every Street were incomplete but two were described by the forensic scientist who examined them as being 280 mm long, that the print encompassed both the heel and the toes, that was a complete print from heel to toe. This evidence he repeated: The other prints that I detected with luminol showed the toes as well, taken from the top of the toes to the heel.

  The simple question was whether or not David Bain’s foot could have made marks of that size and description. Although David Bain testified in evidence at the first trial that he had gone from room to room after he got home, the sock prints were found in a place where the Crown case said Robin Bain would never had been on that morning. At the first trial it was accepted that the sock prints had been made by David although it’s not clear why that happened. It could have been because evidence was given that:

  … socks taken to be Robin’s were measured at 240 mm, and socks taken to be David’s were measured at 270 mm. Evidence was given of the inside measurements of their respective shoes, showing Robin’s at 275 mm and David’s at 304 mm … the jury were not told … that Robin’s feet had been measured in the mortuary and found to be 270 mm.

  Privy Council ruling, 2007

  A forensic scientist for the Crown undertook some bloodied sock-print tests in 1997 and 2007; the final results of these tests were described as follows:<
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  … that a walking person with a 300 mm foot, making sock prints with the sock completely bloodied, would be expected to make a print greater than 280 mm.

  [However] … a print of about 280 mm could be made [and further] … if a 280 mm print were made by a completely bloodied sole of a 300 mm foot, then the print must be incomplete to the extent of 20 mm. Therefore a portion from the tip of the toes, or the end of the heel, or both, must be missing from the print.

  In response to this work, the forensic scientist who had attended Every Street made a further statement saying that his description of a complete print from heel to toe at 280 mm meant that in the print he could see the toe area as well as the heel area, to differentiate it from other partial prints.

  Hence the sock-print tests described in the Prologue. The tests we conducted used methods applied by the Crown’s expert. The results of my tests indicated that David Bain’s foot was too big to deposit complete marks 280 mm long. His feet are 300 mm long and he deposited luminol-enhanced marks that were, on average, 306 mm long. This was an average taken from a total of 22 prints, which ranged from 300 mm to 315 mm.

  Chapter 15

  The police

  In order for sense and sanity to prevail in a world full of chaos, anger and loss, there have to be ways of managing jobs like mine and those of people who are more directly involved with crime. Either let the emotions out and hope they go away or bottle them up until they escape of their own accord in ways that can’t be predicted. For me, it’s pressure release through humour. Although the accounts in this chapter are tragic in their own way, there is an edge of humour to many of them and they should be read on that basis. I’m not trying to belittle anyone or make light of any given situations; rather I hope to demonstrate that people in what would otherwise often be unbearably serious situations do, and say, funny things. And when you work with people all the time, I think it’s nice to acknowledge these funny things. When they’re read out of context and in the cold light of day, you have to wonder about how the events appeared at the material time. For further comment by the police on the job of the police, I suggest reading Wasting Police Time: the crazy world of the war on crime by PC David Copperfield (it’s not his real name but it stops him getting lynched by various parties). At this point, I should add that despite the glares and dirty looks I some times get as an independent expert, I have a huge respect for most police officers. They have an extremely challenging work life and they see the absolute worst of the human race.

  There has been criticism that literacy and numeracy standards in the English police have dropped over the years and I have to say that in some circumstances I do wonder how particular officers passed their exams. Read this and decide what it says:

  Reason doctor requested: banage on left rist and grase to his nee. We are lead to be leave that he has taken drugs with drink.

  Remind me again, who’s taken the drugs with drink?

  There are also many set ways of doing things within police forces, for the sake of clarity and continuity. You can always spot an independent finger print examiner as being a former police officer, because they always write people’s surnames in CAPITAL letters.

  The police are taught to handle any kind of situation and they have ways of dealing with difficult, drunk, drugged-up, belligerent people. They also have a duty of care and to ensure that the people they hold in custody don’t come to any harm and that if there is any suggestion a person is ill, medical assistance is sought. Excess alcohol consumption can potentially be fatal. If sufficient is consumed then a person can lose the ability to coordinate their muscles to such an extent that they stop breathing. It’s called ‘respiratory arrest’. So it’s important that the police establish if someone truly is at risk, or if they’ve got a faker on their hands. This extract shows an example of how they can manage to make the distinction:

  When I approached him, he opened his eyes, looked at me and then closed his eyes again. I tried to raise SMITH by talking to him and he started to wake up initially but then he mumbled some thing which I did not under stand and then seemed to go back to sleep. I then tried to wake SMITH by pressing on his right ear lobe to create a pain response and make him more alert. SMITH immediately woke up when I pressed his ear lobe and tried to grab my arm. He mumbled some thing to the effect of ‘LEAVE ME ALONE’ and tried to go back to sleep.

  That’s polite police speak for he was faking it so I pinched his ear good and hard to get a reaction. I got one and he told me to sod off.

  The interesting circumstances of this case are that Mr Smith was found slumped at the controls of a mobility scooter he’d stolen from outside a local super market. Just a quick note here: Mobility scooters are incredibly common in certain parts of England, particularly the flat parts. In the town where I lived at the time, there was one old guy who drove his scooter everywhere, including down the main roads into town, down the country lanes and on the bypass around the next town over. He never stopped for traffic lights, pedestrian crossings or cars. What made it yet more interesting is that his scooter had no indicators so if he had to cut across traffic or make a turn, he just stuck his arm out and off he went. The problem was, he only had one arm so you never knew when he was going to turn right.

  Anyway, back to Mr Smith, who was so drunk he couldn’t be bothered to walk home, hence the reason for acquisition of a form of transport. Unfortunately, he passed out while he was driving his stolen mobility scooter off down the road, as he made what was probably not the fastest getaway in history. When the police caught up with him, presumably at a slow jog, and checked the front basket of the scooter, they found a half-full pint glass of beer. Not only was he drunk in charge of a mobility scooter, he’d actually been drinking on the job.

  More police-speak was apparent in another case where the final line of the statement very casually stated that the defendant was taken to his cell where due to his demeanour and threats he was strip-searched. There were no more details on his demeanour that had caused this occurrence but I can only assume that he must have upset them in a major way.

  Perhaps our previous defendant had upset the police but this next one must have made them wonder why they even bother. In this case, the police describe how a car left the road, failed to negotiate a road junction, demolished three street signs in the process and came to rest in a field on the other side of a ditch approximately 10 feet wide and six feet deep. This is police-speak for he drove like the clappers, missed the junction and was going so fast he flew over a 10-foot-wide ditch and landed in a field. The police officer approached the car and asked the driver if he was alright, to which he received an obscene gynaecological description of himself. Why indeed would you bother? And please don’t say that his outburst could have been some stress response to the accident because I read the rest of the case circumstances and his behaviour towards the police did not improve — he was just rude.

  When someone in England and Wales is required to provide breath samples to an evidential breath-testing device (the one they have at the police station), the police input the name of the person who is providing the breath samples using a keyboard at the start of the testing procedure. This is so the police don’t get accused of adding someone’s name to the wrong printout at a later time. The person who provided the breath samples is then asked if they want to receive a copy of the printout for their own records and they are also asked to sign all three copies (one for the subject, two for police paper work). The three printouts from the device then have all the details of the test including the name, gender and date of birth details the subject provided to the police at the start of the breath-testing procedure, along with their breath alcohol results and some other bits and pieces. In one case, the man in question informed the police he had been arrested 76 times, which is probably how he justified carrying three metal bars in his car, although I doubt any magistrate or judge would be best impressed.

  When asked his name so it could be entered into the breath-
testing device, he answered FUCK OFF FIND IT OUT FOR-YOUR SELF. Just all charm some people. Quite accurately and appropriately in the circumstances I think, the officer referred to the defendant as Mr FUCK OFF FIND IT OUT-FOR YOUR SELF all the way through his statement and also when giving evidence at court, because it was the only name he had at the time.

  Yet other members of the general public must either make or break a police officer’s night shift. Imagine this: you’re on patrol when you see some drunk bloke at a petrol station who’s driven his vehicle into a concrete curb. He’s so drunk he can’t get out of the car so you go and help. The driver’s committed an offence (drink driving) so you arrest him. According to the police statement, during the course of the arrest the driver (who becomes the defendant by the time I get involved) stopped using his legs, either because of alcohol paralysis or stubbornness, so he was lowered to the ground. After they eventually manage to get him to the police station, officers then tried to get the defendant to go from the car to the custody desk. He refused to walk so he had to be dragged which, the officer pointed out, seemed strange: … as when I had left him with the other officers, he was struggling and shouting at police. He was taken straight through towards the cells but then was laid on the floor for the Custody Sergeant to review him medically. The defendant was refusing to respond to anything said to him but was conscious as he responded to pain.

  An ambulance was called and when the ambulance crew arrived, the defendant was still refusing to cooperate and was rolling around on the floor holding his head. The police officer was again surprised when he turned up at the hospital to see the defendant being taken through Casualty in a wheel chair, smiling and chatting to the nurses. The defendant was then put in a bed in a cubicle on his own. The officer said in his statement that, at one point, he was in the cubicle on his own and I was a short distance away. I saw him lift his head and look around. He then lay back down again before lifting himself over the side rail of the bed and throwing himself onto the ground. He did this on two occasions. It led me to believe that he was trying to get our attention.