Forensic Gait Analysis Forensic Gait Analysis Haydn D. Kelly First edition published 2020 by CRC Press 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 and by CRC Press 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC The right of Haydn D. Kelly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all mate- rial reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. 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ISBN: 978-1-4665-0414-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-37455-0 (ebk) Typeset in Palatino by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Deanta Global Publishing Services, Dublin, Ireland CONTENTS Foreword by Peter James vii Foreword by Dr William A. Wood ix Preface xi Acknowledgements xv Author xvii Contributors xix 1 Gait Analysis: A Historical Overview 1 2 Observational Gait Analysis – Progression and Application 37 3 Neurological Disorders Affecting Gait 63 4 Emotions and Gait 87 5 Video Image Analysis 105 6 Gait Analysis in Identifcation 139 7 Height Estimation Using the Foot or Lower Limb as a Dimension 211 8 Photogrammetry 231 9 Interpreting and Communicating Forensic Statistics 251 v ConTenTs 10 Reports and Report Writing 267 11 Expert Evidence in Court 287 12 The Expert in Court – The Expert’s Perspective 315 Index 329 vi FOREWORD BY PETER JAMES It is a truism that we owe so much of our modern technology and medi- cine to warfare, where rapid advances take place out of necessity. The fght against crime, too, results in constantly advancing law enforcement tech- nology, in particular, in the forensic sciences, and these have been comple- mented by advances in other felds which I try hard to keep abreast of, and which will undoubtedly continue to expand in the age of a digital revolution and beyond. For the past twenty-fve years, in the course of research for my crime thrillers, I’ve spent a great deal of time with both investigators and, some- times, villains too. Two of the most signifcant things I have observed are that, frstly the criminal status quo is constantly changing, and secondly, there is a constant game of catch-up going on between law enforcement and felons, which creates a real dynamic, in trying to keep us safe. I was attending a 0900 hours daily briefng meeting in Brighton Police Station, one Monday morning, around ffteen years ago, when the Divisional Commander turned to me and said, ‘Peter you’ve come on a historic day. This is the frst time since records began that there has not been an overnight domestic burglary in the city.’ ‘Congratulations!’ I replied. ‘So you’ve won the war on crime!’ He laughed, and said that the old school style of creeper burglar – the kind who shins up your drainpipe in the middle of the night and steals your silverware and jewellery – was becoming a dinosaur. He could make much more money out of drug dealing, or the very latest area of crime, internet fraud, and with a less severe sentence if caught. It wasn’t so long ago that some police offcers’ kit comprised a whistle and a truncheon, together with special police phone booths, just like Dr Who’s tardis, that they could run too in order to make an emergency call or to report their whereabouts. Now GPS trackers tells the Control Room exactly where every offcer is; and he or she has Captor spray and many carry a taser and other modern equipment. In some areas they patrol on a Segway. And the high-tech and cybercrime units are the fastest growing areas in many police departments but that’s not all that is evolving! Technology has always interested me and having co-founded an internet service provider in the early 1990s I realised right back then that alongside its potential to become the Information Superhighway, the vii ForeworD by PeTer James internet was also likely to open up a whole new area of violations needing to be countered. In 1994 in addition to the usual print formats, Penguin published my science thriller, Host, on two foppy discs, billing it as the world’s frst electronic novel – and I’m very proud there is a copy of it in the Science Museum, London. The creation of new things and the development of science never cease to amaze me and I feel it is vital always to be on the cutting edge for my books to feel current – and that means being abreast of the advances in law enforcement. Occasionally in the course of my research I strike gold, and I consider the day I met Haydn Kelly to be just that. We were introduced at a din- ner by a mutual friend in the security business, and from the moment I discovered that Haydn was a pioneering specialist in Forensic Podiatry – something I had not heard about – I pestered him with questions for the rest of the evening around the remarkable area of forensics he had created and which was frst introduced as admissible evidence in criminal law in 2000, at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court in London – Forensic Gait Analysis. To introduce a new form of identifcation to the forensic toolbox, and for that to be utilised in legal systems around the world, is a considerable undertaking and a rare achievement. I found it not only fascinating, but saw an opportunity to write about an area of expertise in the battle against crime that no author had yet used. Haydn has subse- quently appeared in nine of my most recent Detective Superintendent Roy Grace novels as himself (right down to the details of the clothes he wears!) and forensic podiatry has become a major weapon in Grace’s armoury for solving homicide cases. I’ve had comments from many police offcers around the world, who had not previously heard of this developing feld, so quite apart from now being a good friendship, it is a great symbiotic relationship that Haydn and I have – he’s brought me the ability to write innovative aspects that are deployed in homicide investigations, that have never before appeared in fction, and I hope through my novels and works to have brought this invaluable new tool in the fght against crime – of all kinds – to a wider law enforcement audience. Peter James www.peterjames.com viii FOREWORD BY DR WILLIAM A. WOOD The involvement of healthcare professionals in forensic sciences has expanded the tools available in the examination of crime scene evidence. Podiatrists bring to the table a bedrock understanding of human biome- chanics and ambulation. Which not only has an essential role in the clini- cal diagnosis and treatment of many conditions, but also qualifying and quantifying individual human gait patterns observed at crime scenes and related environments. Traditionally, forensic evidence in connection with the foot has involved aspects such as the evaluation of static fndings and physical evidence associated with a crime scene. Generally, these have included footprints and footwear impressions with various techniques for captur- ing imprints, which also reveal elements such as foot angulation, step and stride lengths. Numerous methods have evolved to categorise incriminat- ing or exclusionary evidence to a class level of fndings, or ideally, to a spe- cifc individual’s characteristics and probabilistic evidential value. Review of medical records are also useful when considering the presence of any underlying pathology, injury or surgery that can affect an individual’s style or manner of walking or running gait – that is, movement of the whole body from the head to feet; where permutations of variability can have effects at micro and macro levels. Forensic gait analysis engages a person’s gait or features of their gait as physical evidence in the form of CCTV material and other video footage associated with a crime scene. The widening prevalence of CCTV and other video footage is indispensable in assisting the identi- fication of an individual, including where disguises occur. Evaluation of the gait displayed on CCTV footage of an unknown individual and comparison to those of a suspect/s is the essence of forensic gait analysis. With increased processing power and storage capacity of computers, and the incorporation of sophisticated software technology, it would not be unexpected to realise the facility to identify an individual by their gait remotely. ix