Forensic Document Analysis…Change your handwriting…forge a signature!
At the 1st Speaker meeting of the year members of SI Hertford & district were entertained by Dr Steve Day, lecturer in Forensic Chemistry at UEA, Norwich. Dr Day has worked for 30 years in the Forensic Science industry with the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory and then the Home Office’s Forensic Science Service. His specialism being Questioned Documents and handwriting. He has appeared in Court on many occasions as an expert witness, from Loughborough Magistrates to the Courts of Appeal in the Strand.
Today his main research interests are in the development of techniques to improve interpretation of physical evidence in forensic science, in particular in document examination. Such forensic expertise may be required to interpret documents in any of the following cases – fraud; drug dealing; murder/rape; counterfeiting & printing; terrorism & counter terrorism; import & export; illegal immigration and people smuggling.
Steve gave examples from real trials. He emphasised the importance of looking at the whole document. Indented impressions in paper documents such as diaries, can indicate when the sequencing of entries has been altered, added or erased. We analysed and compared our own handwriting on a mock cheque.
We tried to copy each other’s signature and found that this is actually rather difficult!