Visualisation of Injuries for Court Presentations
Expert testimony at court can be difficult to understand by juries, especially medical/pathological evidence which is often at the centre of homicide trials.
However, pathologists cannot use photographs to support their evidence due to the graphic nature of such images. Micro-CT images provide sufficient abstraction and therefore sanitisation to show the images in court to provide context and visual aids to the jury. Medical and pathological evidence can be difficult to understand for lay people and having illustrative support can increase its comprehensiveness.
Professor Mark Williams from WMG, has been working with West Midlands Police to develop 3D views of crime scene injuries, which can be animated into video clips showing detailed views of the injury.
The specialist centre in WMG is used for digital scanning and 3D printing. It allows police to scan injuries and produce 3D print outs for use in expert testimonies.
IMAGE: Professor Mark Williams (left) and Detective Superintendent Mark Payne (West Midlands Police) examine a scan of a murder victim
These individual clips are then incorporated into user-friendly PowerPoint presentations with interactive components. The scans are 1,000 times more detailed than hospital scans, and can detect microscopic injuries which could otherwise be missed by conventional medical CT scanners.
The micro-CT scanning technology can also be used for high-resolution imaging of paediatric non-accidental injuries, improving strangulation diagnoses and creating a reference repository for the characterisation and analysis of sharp force injuries on bone.