1.31 Investigating the emergence of expertise in forensic face matching over time

Academic team: Dr Reuben Moreton, Professor Graham Pike, Dr Ailsa Strathie, Dr Catriona Havard
Policing partners: Metropolitan Police Service
Status: Complete

Forensic face-matching examiners provide vital identification evidence in criminal investigations. Research has shown that examiners possess expertise in face-matching, but the expertise and how it develops is poorly understood.

This project aims to investigate potential benefits from face-matching processes used by expert examiners and approaches to collaborative decision making by multiple examiners to improve performance.

Outputs

TitleOutputs typeLead academicYear
Collaborative decision making and experience in forensic facial comparisonPosterMoreton, R2022
Expertise in forensic face matchingPresentationMoreton, R2022

News

Findings from an evaluation of the pilot application of AI for witness statement and report generation

Dr Paul Walley and Dr Helen Glasspoole-Bird have published an evaluation report entitled “An Evaluation of the Pilot Application of Artificial Intelligence to Witness Statement and Report Generation at Hertfordshire Constabulary”.  The work studies the outputs of version 1 of an AI application that takes audio from Rapid Video Response interviews with victims of domestic abuse and converts this into relevant summary documents including MG11 witness statements.

15th May 2025