FORENSICS

The George Edalji Case has many aspects: leg­al, his­tor­ic­al, polit­ic­al, and lit­er­ary. They have been suf­fi­ciently examined, and there is little to add.

But what do the anonym­ous, weird let­ters reveal about their author, and what does George Edalji’s unusu­al beha­viour reveal to us today? Is police racism the only answer to the remain­ing ques­tions in this crim­in­al case? Are guilt and inno­cence in this case as clear as asser­ted in the past?

Forensic sci­ence has developed new meth­ods and ana­lyt­ic­al tech­niques. Much of this was unknown in Dr Doyle’s life­time. Nowadays, there are more forensic pos­sib­il­it­ies than hand­writ­ing ana­lys­is to assess let­ters, text, and human beha­viour. There­fore, forensic lin­guists and psy­cho­lo­gists have advised this project.

FORENSIC LINGUISTICS

Dr Isabel Picornell Forensic Linguist
Dr Isa­bel Picor­nell, MCSFS

Dr Isa­bel Picor­nell, MCSFS (Mem­ber of the Chartered Soci­ety for Forensic Sci­ences) Con­sult­ant Forensic Lin­guist and Dir­ect­or of QED­forensics (QED Lim­ited).

PhD in Forensic Lin­guist­ics from Aston Uni­ver­sity (UK), and Vis­it­ing Research Fel­low with the Aston Insti­tute for Forensic Linguistics.

2021 – 2023 Pres­id­ent of the Inter­na­tion­al Asso­ci­ation for Forensic and Leg­al Lin­guist­ics (IAFLL),  a mem­ber of the Ger­man­ic Soci­ety for Forensic Lin­guist­ics (GSFL).

Cardiff Uni­ver­sity Bond Solon Expert Wit­ness Cer­ti­fic­ate (CUBS).

BOOK:
Meth­od­o­lo­gies and Chal­lenges in Forensic Lin­guist­ic Case­work (Wiley Series in The Psy­cho­logy of Crime, Poli­cing and Law)
Isa­bel Picor­nell, Ria Per­kins & Mal­colm Coulthard (eds.) (2022) NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.