- Email: [email protected]
Accreditation denied
being informative. Those of us who have been involved in a multi-author publication, particularly of this size, can appreciate the difficulty of such a task. As Professor Mason states in his preface, this book is not only meant for the specialist forensic pathologist, but also for hospital pathologists and others involved in the clinical and the medico-legal aspects of trauma. The broad base of the book is reflected in the number of chapters with obvious clinical bias. It begins with chapters on injuries sustained from vehicular accidents. I particularly liked the excellent diagrams, reflecting the relative incidence of each type of injury in different types of road users in chapter one. Pedestrian accidents in the following chapter were comprehensively covered, yet clear and instructive. The third chapter, on the prevention of vehicular injury, is lucidly written as one would expect from such an authority, as the author is, in this field. There then follow sections on mass disasters, firearms, explosions and war wounds, all written by acknowledged exerts in their particular fields. The latter chapter is written by a military surgeon and reflects the clinico-pathological treatment of the text, as do a number of other chapters such as those on burning, chemical pathology and haemorrhage, haemostasis and thrombosis, to name but a few. The section on domestic violence gives a useful account of the battered spouse syndrome and abuse and neglect of the elderly, subjects usually glossed over in forensic texts. The chapter on injuries due to sport and other leisure activities provided the reader with a useful overview of this increasingly important subject, bearing in mind the potential risk to an increasing number of participants in leisure activities over the last few years. There are many other chapters in the book, too numerous to single out, all well written , informative and up-to-date, reflecting the high level of expertise of the individual contributors. For the forensic medical practitioner, this text has to be essential reading. I have found it useful in the short time it has been in my possession, both from its practical point of view in problem solving, and as a reference in court. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to all practitioners involved in the evaluation of trauma. P VANEZIS
EXPERT EVIDENCE AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM
Expert Witnesses, Science, Medicine and the Practice of Law Carol A G Jones (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, 278 pp, index, ISBN 0 19 825797 X; £35.00) This book in the Oxford Socio-Legal Series was written by a sociologist who conducted her own field studies in various courts to examine at first hand the way in which the law treats scientific witnesses. The book surveys both law and science from an entirely new angle. Despite the legal and scientific dogma that the facts speak for themselves, says the author, in practice no one in the legal system leaves what they say to chance. Legal and scientific facts are not given;
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
they are highly pre-fabricated. This is the theme of the book-the conditioning of evidence which the legal system and the sociological culture imposes. The dynamics of advocacy require your opponent's witnesses to be destroyed, and experts regularly encounter conditions of organized scepticism. If the scientist fails to measure up to the ideal he is dismissed as a charlatan, a visionary or a fake. Lawyers therefore require experts to be expert not only as scientists but as witnesses. The reader may at this point comment "Is that such a bad thing?" From these robust beginnings the author proceeds to trace the history of the interaction of law and science and the emergence of the jury from being witnesses, sometimes with special knowledge, to being judges of the evidence given by others. As knowledge spread in the post-Reformation ages the new science was extolled, sometimes as "impregnable", inevitably posing a conflict with the theology, morality and reason of the day. There followed the age of the medical detectives-Taylor, Spilsbury, Luff, Wright and Willcox, when the white-coated solver of all problems made a pronouncement which seemed to unravel all mysteries. The remainder of the book charts the law's response to this influx of experts trading on the myth of near-infallibility; and in a series of chapters, the legal restrictions placed on expert testimony are considered-hearsay, hypothetical questions and the clash of opposing opinions. These chapters touch on all the more sceptical modern thinking about expert witnesses, the structure of experts' reports, the rules requiring exchange of information, the questioned independence of the specialist laboratories, and the impact of advocacy upon scientific findings. The modern cases where it is reckoned that forensic science failed to achieve justice are examined. Finally in a concluding chapter the author, wearing the mantle of the sociologist, shows that the belief in science as an absolute, though widely held, is untrue. Experts have become victims of their own past performance. Science cannot solve all problems and rests not as some have supposed on bed-rock but only on whatever piles scientists have chosen to drive as foundations. Here is an area where law and science have interpenetrated one another. The debate has been joined; it will not go away. Despite the difficulty of rising above professional myths and factional boundaries, Carol Goodwin Jones has probed and ploughed well. Surely, to put it at its lowest, the soil can only be the better for being turned over and exposed to the light of day. This is a book to provoke thought. You will either like it or hate it. AR BROWNLIE ACCREDITATION DENIED
Judicial Graphology Vol 111 Renna Nezos (Scriptor Press, British Institute of Graphology, London, 1994, I76 pp, ISBN 0 9512700 7 3 ; £15.96) Graphology has not as yet been accepted as evidence in British Courts and this book is one of the best demonstrations why it never should be.
Ms Nezos is a graphologist and a founder member of the British Institute of Graphologists. Her case, set out in this book, is that graphologists have more to offer in the area of handwriting and signature identifications than do the forensic scientists specializing in this field. Unfortunately for this argument, Ms Nezos demonstrates a lamentable lack of knowledge of the field of forensic document examination, with a number of errors in elementary matters in the book which should have been picked up in any critical review. This lack of critical review could well be explained by the fact that the book was published by Ms Nezos' own Institute of Graphology. The end result is that her credibility as an authority in Document Authentication, as claimed on the back of the book, must seriously be questioned. It is hard not to take the sceptical view that the book has been written with the sole aim of giving the graphologist a veneer of respectability in the field of forensic identification of handwriting and signatures. The bid to accredit graphology as the basis of the forensic examination of signatures and handwriting begins in the introduction. Here Judicial Graphology is defined as being identical with Document Authentication and it is stated that the individual who practises Judicial Graphology is a handwriting expert, although not always a graphologist. This muddled definition is typical of the contortions which Ms Nezos undergoes in an attempt to represent the graphologist as the established expert in the field of handwriting and signature identification. It cannot be stated too firmly that graphology is a completely separate subject to forensic document examination. Forensic document examination, which is the branch of forensic science dealing with the authentication of documents, handwriting and signatures, as practised by properly-trained and tested forensic scientists all over the world, is based on clear scientific process and objective judgement. Graphology, the study of personality traits in handwriting, is a pseudo-science which has no credible scientific basis. To suggest, as does Ms Nezos, that authentication of a document is solely a matter of authenticating a signature or a piece of handwriting is entirely misleading. The forensic document examiner is trained in all aspects of the physical make-up of documents. The scientist who identified the signature at the end of a multi-page Agreement as genuine but failed to note that the signature page was fundamentally different in paper, typeface and attachment would have failed in his or her duty to the client. The first chapter of the book is devoted to an explanation of the 'Laws of Writing' as interpreted by the graphologist. Forensic scientists will be mystified by the assertion that writing movement is under the direct influence of the central nervous system which comprises (contrary to established medical belief) the brain, the cerebellum and the spinal fluid! Much of the book is devoted to detailed descriptions of the appearance of handwriting with descriptions such as 'velvety', 'pasty', 'runny', 'bridled' and 'vibrant' used to describe conscious and unconscious movements. What is noticeably missing from this analysis is any mention of the effect of different types of writing implement. The forensic
158
document examiner is left wondering how the description of 'runny' stroke quality, defined as being precise on one side and fringed on another, might be applied to the appearance of pen lines written with ballpoint pens and roller balls which, because of their completely different inks, have fundamentally different characteristics. Neither is there any indication as to how the type of paper on which the writing is made might influence the appearance of the pen stroke. Although over thirty pages of the book are devoted to studying general characteristics of handwriting, there is only one short section which touches on that feature of handwritings and signatures which is the very basis of their scientific examination and identification-the detailed examination of character structure. Indeed, the basic principle that the individual characters of all writings can be constructed differently and the differences in structure are of fundamental significance in the identification of handwriting and signatures, is missing from this book. This is the reason why so many graphologists wrongly assess handwriting and signatures on questioned documents. The absence of discussion of this fundamental area means that this volume is seriously lacking as a credible text-book for anyone wishing to study the authentication of handwritings and signatures. The fact that the chapter on authentication techniques begins by identifying two broad groups of questioned document authentication [sic] as (a) the identification of a letter, a will or a signature and (b) anonymous letters, suggests that this is going to be a very limited view of the subject-and it is, relying solely on the type of superficial handwriting studies described previously in the book and mixed liberally with graphological interpretations of the emotional state of the writer. Ms Nezos carefully states that certain aspects of examination are the province of the laboratory technicians. Forensic document examiners in some of the most prestigious forensic science laboratories in the world will be less than gratified by this grudging description of their expertise. David Ellen of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory and his co-workers Doug Foster and BobFreeman will be astounded to hear that the ESDA technique which they pioneered in London in 1977 was, according to Ms Nezos, invented by their German colleagues at the Kriminaltechnisches Institute in 1988! Even the most junior forensic document examiner will be surprised to learn that they will routinely X-ray documents to reveal expunged passages! ESDA analysis, ink analysis, principles of handwriting and signature analysis are well-documented in established forensic science journals and text books. Clearly, Ms Nezos is unfamiliar with, and has not bothered to research, the methods by which questioned document examination is carried out. This is very surprising since she describes training in judicial graphology in her final chapter as taking two years and being extremely sophisticated, scientific and technological and involving computers, chemistry, etc., [sic]. Indeed, Ms Nezos would do well to consult the handwriting experts at the Bundeskriminalamt Laboratories as to the graphological content of their training. She would find that rather than being the major platform of their training as
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
suggested in this book, the subject of graphology is minimal and taught as a general awareness subject. Ms Nezos's final gambit is to state that the laboratory experts (by which term I understand she is describing the forensic scientists who specialize in the examination of questioned documents) walk blindfold into the vast minefield of graphology. Since no forensic scientist specializing in the forensic examination of documents in this country practises graphology, this would seem to be a superfluous warning. Her book, however, very adequately demonstrates one important point-that graphologists should stick to graphology. It has no place in forensic science, nor in our Courts of Law. A GILES
ON CRUTCHES Alcohol and Drug Misuse (J Chick and R Cantwell (eds), Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, 1994, 246 pp, index, ISBN 0 902241 70 2; £13.50) Alcohol and Drug Misuse is a further publication in the College Seminar Series of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The .book covers the aetiology, epidemiology, prevention, clinical features and treatment of alcohol misuse and illicit drug use. The subject of dependence on prescribed and socially tolerated substances-minor tranquillizers, tobacco and caffeine-is covered.
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
The chapter on psychiatric syndromes associated with drug misuse covers the important abstinence syndromes, such as delirium tremens and sedative withdrawal, as well as a useful section on psychosis associated with the use of drugs such as amphetamine, cocaine, Khat, and cannabis. The medical aspects of drug and alcohol misuse provides a handy revision on the clinical problems that may be encountered, including HIV and AIDS, viral hepatitis and neurological disorders, to name but a few, and especially a section on substance misuse in pregnancy. Further chapters dependence, the management of treatment services
cover the concept and definition of cognitive-behavioural approach to the addictive behaviour, and organizing for drug and alcohol misusers.
I found the book a very readable and informative review of the subject. As a police surgeon working in South London, many of the people I examine when called to the police station, whether victims or suspects, have alcohol problems and many are polydrug misusers. Bruce Ritson, in discussing the epidemiology and primary prevention of alcohol misuse modestly points out that "it has been estimated that alcohol misuse makes a massive contribution to crime in the UK". I feel that this book is of value to police surgeons as well as trainee psychiatrists, general practitioners and accident and emergency physicians-those who will see, almost on a daily basis, the effects of acute intoxication and chronic dependence on alcohol and other drugs. MARGARET M. STARK
EXPERT EVIDENCE AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM
Expert Witnesses, Science, Medicine and the Practice of Law Carol A G Jones (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, 278 pp, index, ISBN 0 19 825797 X; £35.00) This book in the Oxford Socio-Legal Series was written by a sociologist who conducted her own field studies in various courts to examine at first hand the way in which the law treats scientific witnesses. The book surveys both law and science from an entirely new angle. Despite the legal and scientific dogma that the facts speak for themselves, says the author, in practice no one in the legal system leaves what they say to chance. Legal and scientific facts are not given;
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
they are highly pre-fabricated. This is the theme of the book-the conditioning of evidence which the legal system and the sociological culture imposes. The dynamics of advocacy require your opponent's witnesses to be destroyed, and experts regularly encounter conditions of organized scepticism. If the scientist fails to measure up to the ideal he is dismissed as a charlatan, a visionary or a fake. Lawyers therefore require experts to be expert not only as scientists but as witnesses. The reader may at this point comment "Is that such a bad thing?" From these robust beginnings the author proceeds to trace the history of the interaction of law and science and the emergence of the jury from being witnesses, sometimes with special knowledge, to being judges of the evidence given by others. As knowledge spread in the post-Reformation ages the new science was extolled, sometimes as "impregnable", inevitably posing a conflict with the theology, morality and reason of the day. There followed the age of the medical detectives-Taylor, Spilsbury, Luff, Wright and Willcox, when the white-coated solver of all problems made a pronouncement which seemed to unravel all mysteries. The remainder of the book charts the law's response to this influx of experts trading on the myth of near-infallibility; and in a series of chapters, the legal restrictions placed on expert testimony are considered-hearsay, hypothetical questions and the clash of opposing opinions. These chapters touch on all the more sceptical modern thinking about expert witnesses, the structure of experts' reports, the rules requiring exchange of information, the questioned independence of the specialist laboratories, and the impact of advocacy upon scientific findings. The modern cases where it is reckoned that forensic science failed to achieve justice are examined. Finally in a concluding chapter the author, wearing the mantle of the sociologist, shows that the belief in science as an absolute, though widely held, is untrue. Experts have become victims of their own past performance. Science cannot solve all problems and rests not as some have supposed on bed-rock but only on whatever piles scientists have chosen to drive as foundations. Here is an area where law and science have interpenetrated one another. The debate has been joined; it will not go away. Despite the difficulty of rising above professional myths and factional boundaries, Carol Goodwin Jones has probed and ploughed well. Surely, to put it at its lowest, the soil can only be the better for being turned over and exposed to the light of day. This is a book to provoke thought. You will either like it or hate it. AR BROWNLIE ACCREDITATION DENIED
Judicial Graphology Vol 111 Renna Nezos (Scriptor Press, British Institute of Graphology, London, 1994, I76 pp, ISBN 0 9512700 7 3 ; £15.96) Graphology has not as yet been accepted as evidence in British Courts and this book is one of the best demonstrations why it never should be.
Ms Nezos is a graphologist and a founder member of the British Institute of Graphologists. Her case, set out in this book, is that graphologists have more to offer in the area of handwriting and signature identifications than do the forensic scientists specializing in this field. Unfortunately for this argument, Ms Nezos demonstrates a lamentable lack of knowledge of the field of forensic document examination, with a number of errors in elementary matters in the book which should have been picked up in any critical review. This lack of critical review could well be explained by the fact that the book was published by Ms Nezos' own Institute of Graphology. The end result is that her credibility as an authority in Document Authentication, as claimed on the back of the book, must seriously be questioned. It is hard not to take the sceptical view that the book has been written with the sole aim of giving the graphologist a veneer of respectability in the field of forensic identification of handwriting and signatures. The bid to accredit graphology as the basis of the forensic examination of signatures and handwriting begins in the introduction. Here Judicial Graphology is defined as being identical with Document Authentication and it is stated that the individual who practises Judicial Graphology is a handwriting expert, although not always a graphologist. This muddled definition is typical of the contortions which Ms Nezos undergoes in an attempt to represent the graphologist as the established expert in the field of handwriting and signature identification. It cannot be stated too firmly that graphology is a completely separate subject to forensic document examination. Forensic document examination, which is the branch of forensic science dealing with the authentication of documents, handwriting and signatures, as practised by properly-trained and tested forensic scientists all over the world, is based on clear scientific process and objective judgement. Graphology, the study of personality traits in handwriting, is a pseudo-science which has no credible scientific basis. To suggest, as does Ms Nezos, that authentication of a document is solely a matter of authenticating a signature or a piece of handwriting is entirely misleading. The forensic document examiner is trained in all aspects of the physical make-up of documents. The scientist who identified the signature at the end of a multi-page Agreement as genuine but failed to note that the signature page was fundamentally different in paper, typeface and attachment would have failed in his or her duty to the client. The first chapter of the book is devoted to an explanation of the 'Laws of Writing' as interpreted by the graphologist. Forensic scientists will be mystified by the assertion that writing movement is under the direct influence of the central nervous system which comprises (contrary to established medical belief) the brain, the cerebellum and the spinal fluid! Much of the book is devoted to detailed descriptions of the appearance of handwriting with descriptions such as 'velvety', 'pasty', 'runny', 'bridled' and 'vibrant' used to describe conscious and unconscious movements. What is noticeably missing from this analysis is any mention of the effect of different types of writing implement. The forensic
158
document examiner is left wondering how the description of 'runny' stroke quality, defined as being precise on one side and fringed on another, might be applied to the appearance of pen lines written with ballpoint pens and roller balls which, because of their completely different inks, have fundamentally different characteristics. Neither is there any indication as to how the type of paper on which the writing is made might influence the appearance of the pen stroke. Although over thirty pages of the book are devoted to studying general characteristics of handwriting, there is only one short section which touches on that feature of handwritings and signatures which is the very basis of their scientific examination and identification-the detailed examination of character structure. Indeed, the basic principle that the individual characters of all writings can be constructed differently and the differences in structure are of fundamental significance in the identification of handwriting and signatures, is missing from this book. This is the reason why so many graphologists wrongly assess handwriting and signatures on questioned documents. The absence of discussion of this fundamental area means that this volume is seriously lacking as a credible text-book for anyone wishing to study the authentication of handwritings and signatures. The fact that the chapter on authentication techniques begins by identifying two broad groups of questioned document authentication [sic] as (a) the identification of a letter, a will or a signature and (b) anonymous letters, suggests that this is going to be a very limited view of the subject-and it is, relying solely on the type of superficial handwriting studies described previously in the book and mixed liberally with graphological interpretations of the emotional state of the writer. Ms Nezos carefully states that certain aspects of examination are the province of the laboratory technicians. Forensic document examiners in some of the most prestigious forensic science laboratories in the world will be less than gratified by this grudging description of their expertise. David Ellen of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory and his co-workers Doug Foster and BobFreeman will be astounded to hear that the ESDA technique which they pioneered in London in 1977 was, according to Ms Nezos, invented by their German colleagues at the Kriminaltechnisches Institute in 1988! Even the most junior forensic document examiner will be surprised to learn that they will routinely X-ray documents to reveal expunged passages! ESDA analysis, ink analysis, principles of handwriting and signature analysis are well-documented in established forensic science journals and text books. Clearly, Ms Nezos is unfamiliar with, and has not bothered to research, the methods by which questioned document examination is carried out. This is very surprising since she describes training in judicial graphology in her final chapter as taking two years and being extremely sophisticated, scientific and technological and involving computers, chemistry, etc., [sic]. Indeed, Ms Nezos would do well to consult the handwriting experts at the Bundeskriminalamt Laboratories as to the graphological content of their training. She would find that rather than being the major platform of their training as
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
suggested in this book, the subject of graphology is minimal and taught as a general awareness subject. Ms Nezos's final gambit is to state that the laboratory experts (by which term I understand she is describing the forensic scientists who specialize in the examination of questioned documents) walk blindfold into the vast minefield of graphology. Since no forensic scientist specializing in the forensic examination of documents in this country practises graphology, this would seem to be a superfluous warning. Her book, however, very adequately demonstrates one important point-that graphologists should stick to graphology. It has no place in forensic science, nor in our Courts of Law. A GILES
ON CRUTCHES Alcohol and Drug Misuse (J Chick and R Cantwell (eds), Royal College of Psychiatrists, London, 1994, 246 pp, index, ISBN 0 902241 70 2; £13.50) Alcohol and Drug Misuse is a further publication in the College Seminar Series of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The .book covers the aetiology, epidemiology, prevention, clinical features and treatment of alcohol misuse and illicit drug use. The subject of dependence on prescribed and socially tolerated substances-minor tranquillizers, tobacco and caffeine-is covered.
Science & Justice 1995; 35(2): 156-159
The chapter on psychiatric syndromes associated with drug misuse covers the important abstinence syndromes, such as delirium tremens and sedative withdrawal, as well as a useful section on psychosis associated with the use of drugs such as amphetamine, cocaine, Khat, and cannabis. The medical aspects of drug and alcohol misuse provides a handy revision on the clinical problems that may be encountered, including HIV and AIDS, viral hepatitis and neurological disorders, to name but a few, and especially a section on substance misuse in pregnancy. Further chapters dependence, the management of treatment services
cover the concept and definition of cognitive-behavioural approach to the addictive behaviour, and organizing for drug and alcohol misusers.
I found the book a very readable and informative review of the subject. As a police surgeon working in South London, many of the people I examine when called to the police station, whether victims or suspects, have alcohol problems and many are polydrug misusers. Bruce Ritson, in discussing the epidemiology and primary prevention of alcohol misuse modestly points out that "it has been estimated that alcohol misuse makes a massive contribution to crime in the UK". I feel that this book is of value to police surgeons as well as trainee psychiatrists, general practitioners and accident and emergency physicians-those who will see, almost on a daily basis, the effects of acute intoxication and chronic dependence on alcohol and other drugs. MARGARET M. STARK