The JOINT ONLINE CONFERENCE between British Academy of Forensic Sciences (www.bafs.org.uk) and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts (www.iabpa.org ) took place on 9th July 2022.
A range of incredible speakers zoomed in from all over world during the day, to present their fascinating insights and research in BPA; and over a 100 delegates joined the conference live and via the conference webinar of recorded sessions.
After an opening from Tracy Alexander, President of BAFS, and Cele Rossi, President of IABPA the conference was split into ‘Investigation’ and ‘Evaluation’ sessions, which had a practitioner focus, and Rapid Fire Research sessions allowing early career researchers with a focus on bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) to share their research and connect with practitioners.
The highlights were keynote sessions by Forensic Scientist Jo Millington [Spatter/ED, Millington Hingley Ltd] and Siobhan Grey QC [Libertas Chambers] who shared their experiences of a murder investigation in which the re-evaluation of BPA and pathology evidence led to the acquittal of two men that had been wrongly convicted of murder; and Dr Daniel Attinger who spoke about the application of evaluative propositions and likelihood ratios, and their role in developing the scope and methods of BPA.
Other presentations dealt with the interpretation and evaluation of bloodstain pattern evidence including how scientists use other observations at the scene in their interpretation of the sequence of events; quality standards within BPA, including an update on the changing forensic science regulation landscape from a non- statutory to a statutory basis in England and Wales.
The day included Rapid Fire R&D sessions dealing with some of the emerging research in BPA:
Impact of different resolution IR systems on the detection of blood on dark fabric surfaces.
Novel approach for bloodstain dating based on the likelihood ratio-based estimation of the (dis)similarity between the stage of evidence decomposition and reference materials obtained through supervised aging.
Investigation of bloodstain patterns created on knives in stabbing incidents.
Use of optical profilometry to investigate changes in surface characteristics of degrading bloodstains.
Effects of temperature on the solid-state UV/Vis profiles of degrading bloodstains and the determination of time since deposition (TSD).
Quantifying BPA in the UK, from 78 criminal investigations between 2012-2020.
Use of impact velocity apparatus as a viable tool to test the validity, reliability, and accuracy of bloodstain-pattern reconstruction.
Area of origin estimation with non-linear trajectories formulated as an optimization problem.
Uncertainty of angle of impact and area of origin determination in common environmental terrains.
Comparison of different published methodologies used to classify, interpret, and evaluate bloodstains.
Influence of case information and surface material effects on the judgments of forensic science undergraduate students within the discipline of BPA.
Application of machine learning algorithms to facilitate forensic decision making within BPA.
CATCH UP ON THE RECORDED SESSIONS HERE
Some speakers gave their permission for their presentation to be recorded and these are now available in the form of a webinar which is available to all conference delegates via the link https://spattered.thinkific.com/courses/bafs-iabpa-BPAconference2022 . If you missed the conference, 'online recording only tickets' can be purchased via the link above for £25 (per individual, including VAT) and all proceeds (after administration charges) will go to support BAFS / IABPA. BAFS is registered under charity number 299875 with the Charity Commission for England and Wales (BAFS). There is some open access content on there too and attendees can download their certificate of attendance from this site.
If you'd like more information about the conference, or the organisations that supported this event, please contact iabpa2022@gmail.com or follow the conference on social media #iabpa2022
