Clothing Analysis
Many serious assaults involve the use of a knife or other bladed or non-bladed implement. During a forensic investigation the scientist may compare a suspect item with holes or marks in the victim's clothing. There are many variables that can be expected to affect the length or nature of a cut in a garment among them being the degree of stretch of the garment, the sharpness of the knife blade, the angle of the blade to the surface and the degree of force used.
In this type of examination, the appearance of the ends of fibres enables the scientist to comment on whether any damage is "fresh in appearance" and also whether they have been cut or torn and, on occasions, allow comment to be made on the type of instrument that may have been used to produce the damage.
However given the inherent difficulties in this type of case Bericon is able appraise the significance of the Crown's findings and sometimes propose other reasons for the observed damage.