: : Professor Malcolm Coulthard
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts written in English and Portuguese.
Positions: Professor of Forensic Linguistics, Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, Emeritus Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Birmingham University, Honorary Professor at Cardiff University.
Experience: I specialise in authorship analysis work but do take cases is all areas of forensic text analysis. I have worked on disputed confessions, abusive letters, suspect suicide notes, emails, text messages, instant messenger conversations as well as various kinds of plagiarised texts.
I have been commissioned to prepare reports for both Prosecution and Defence in over 180 cases including seven reports for the Criminal Cases Review Commission, one for the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and two for the financial detective companies Kroll and Control Risks. I wrote reports for the following Appeals: the Birmingham Six, Derek Bentley, the Paul Blackburn, the Bridgewater Four, Robert Brown, Dudley and Maynard, Iain Hay Gordon, the Campbell 'Glasgow Ice Cream Wars' Appeal and the Ronald Bolden trial, at the conclusion of which, in 1989, the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad was disbanded. I have given evidence in court many times, including a case of academic plagiarism in the High Court in Hong Kong, three terrorist trials in Northern Ireland, a murder trial in Norwich, the Danielle Jones/Stuart Campbell 'texting' murder trial in Chelmsford, a Court Martial in Germany and the Derek Bentley, Paul Malone, Robert Burton and Paul Blackburn Appeals in the Royal Courts of Justice in London. I have also worked with the Metropolitan, the Scottish, the South Wales and the Military police on internal investigations. My latest court appearance was at the trial of David Hodgson for the murder of Jenny Nicholl.
Qualifications: I have Postgraduate Certificate in Phonetics, a Master's degree in General Linguistics and a PhD in Sociolinguistics.
A sample case
A 19-year-old woman went out one a Friday evening telling her parents she would be spending the night with friends. On the following Monday she was reported missing after she failed to turn up to work. Her car was found in a pub car park, her mobile phone was switched off, her bank account untouched. Ten days later two friends received text messages saying she had left home to live in Scotland with her (unnamed) boyfriend - no known boyfriend was missing. Five days later her father received two text messages saying she had left home because of her poor relationship with him and her mother.
The police discovered she had been having a relationship for four years with the middle-aged father of one of her friends but had, in the week she disappeared, spent the night at his brother's flat. Some time later some of her personal effects were found in the local woods close to where she used to go camping with her lover. He became a suspect in her disappearance and I was asked to examine the four text messages to see whether it was likely that she had indeed sent them or if not whether the lover might have sent them.
The Police recovered eleven messages she had previously sent to the two friends and over 100 sent by the lover to various friends and relatives. The four suspect messages contained a series of choices which differed from those in the known text messages and I concluded that it was unlikely that she had texted the messages. The lover's texts contained examples of many, though not all, of the distinctive features, including two spelling mistakes and I concluded that he was one of a small number of possible authors.
Other evidence about the location of the phone when the messages were sent, the fact that the lover had hired cars on the two days when the messages were sent and the mileage and sighting times were consistent with him having travelled to the locations to send the messages all supported the hypothesis that he had indeed sent the messages. Putting together all the evidence in the case, of which the texting was a small but important part, the jury convicted the lover of murder. He is currently appealing. See this link for more details on the case.
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: : Dr Tim Grant
Languages: I only take consultancy work for texts written in the English language.
Positions: Deputy Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics, Honorary Visiting Fellow to the Forensic Section of the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester.
Experience: I have provided linguistic evidence for more than ten years in criminal and civil cases. I specialise in authorship analysis work, identifying who wrote a written text, but take cases is all areas of forensic text analysis. I have worked on many different forms of written text. These have included longer texts such as terrorist conspiracy documents many thousands of words long, as well as letters, emails, text messages and instant messenger conversations.
Qualifications: I have MSc in Cognitive Psychology and a PhD in Forensic Authorship Analysis. I have received expert witness training in report writing and courtroom presentation skills.
A sample case
A major international food supplier received a number of extortion emails from an anonymous account. The emails contained threats to contaminate a range of their products. The content of the emails suggested a discontented employee or ex-employee from a particular regional office.
With the co-operation of the company and the investigating police force I collected more than two hundred emails representing eighteen employees and ex-employees of the company and subjected these to a statistical analysis based upon word-frequency distributions, functional word distributions and other lexical statistics. As a result of the analysis I was able to identify a potential suspect author who was considerably more likely than others in the suspect pool to have written the offending emails.
A more qualitative examination of the suspect's undisputed emails showed a consistent use of a number of linguistic devices. These included consistent unusual word choices, patterns of spelling errors and unusual punctuation and also some indications that they were not a native writer in English. Having demonstrated the consistent use of these discriminating features across the undisputed messages of the suspect author, and having demonstrated their rarity in the texts of the other authors' emails, I was able to show that their occurrence in the anonymous texts increased the likelihood that the suspect had indeed written the blackmail emails.
At police interview my report assisted the police in obtaining an admission of guilt and the suspect subsequently pleaded guilty to a range of related offences and received a custodial sentence.
Languages: I only take consultancy work for texts written in the English language.
Positions: Deputy Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics, Honorary Visiting Fellow to the Forensic Section of the School of Psychology at the University of Leicester.
Experience: I have provided linguistic evidence for more than ten years in criminal and civil cases. I specialise in authorship analysis work, identifying who wrote a written text, but take cases is all areas of forensic text analysis. I have worked on many different forms of written text. These have included longer texts such as terrorist conspiracy documents many thousands of words long, as well as letters, emails, text messages and instant messenger conversations.
Qualifications: I have MSc in Cognitive Psychology and a PhD in Forensic Authorship Analysis. I have received expert witness training in report writing and courtroom presentation skills.
A sample case
A major international food supplier received a number of extortion emails from an anonymous account. The emails contained threats to contaminate a range of their products. The content of the emails suggested a discontented employee or ex-employee from a particular regional office.
With the co-operation of the company and the investigating police force I collected more than two hundred emails representing eighteen employees and ex-employees of the company and subjected these to a statistical analysis based upon word-frequency distributions, functional word distributions and other lexical statistics. As a result of the analysis I was able to identify a potential suspect author who was considerably more likely than others in the suspect pool to have written the offending emails.
A more qualitative examination of the suspect's undisputed emails showed a consistent use of a number of linguistic devices. These included consistent unusual word choices, patterns of spelling errors and unusual punctuation and also some indications that they were not a native writer in English. Having demonstrated the consistent use of these discriminating features across the undisputed messages of the suspect author, and having demonstrated their rarity in the texts of the other authors' emails, I was able to show that their occurrence in the anonymous texts increased the likelihood that the suspect had indeed written the blackmail emails.
At police interview my report assisted the police in obtaining an admission of guilt and the suspect subsequently pleaded guilty to a range of related offences and received a custodial sentence.
: : Dr Krzysztof Kredens
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts written in English and Polish.
Positions: Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Director of the International Summer School in Forensic Linguistic Analysis, Aston University.
Experience: I have lectured on English linguistics and applied linguistics for the last 12 years. I have published papers, given conference talks and edited a book on aspects of forensic linguistics. I also work as a public service interpreter.
Qualifications: I have a Master's degree in English Studies and a PhD in English Linguistics, both from the University of Lodz, Poland. I have completed an intensive summer course on European Legal Communication organised by the European Commission.
A sample case
I was approached by the author of a software package and asked to provide an expert opinion for a Polish court in a civil case involving dictionary plagiarism. The package consisted of a Polish-English and English-Polish translation programme as well as a Polish-English and English-Polish dictionary. The author claimed that an overwhelming part of the two dictionaries had found its way to a competitor's software package. Following qualitative and quantitative analysis I concluded that the similarity between the dictionaries was not the result of chance and that
The author(s) of dictionary A used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of dictionary B; or
The author(s) of dictionary B used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of dictionary A; or
The author(s) of dictionary A and the author(s) of dictionary B used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of a third, unknown source.
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts written in English and Polish.
Positions: Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, Director of the International Summer School in Forensic Linguistic Analysis, Aston University.
Experience: I have lectured on English linguistics and applied linguistics for the last 12 years. I have published papers, given conference talks and edited a book on aspects of forensic linguistics. I also work as a public service interpreter.
Qualifications: I have a Master's degree in English Studies and a PhD in English Linguistics, both from the University of Lodz, Poland. I have completed an intensive summer course on European Legal Communication organised by the European Commission.
A sample case
I was approached by the author of a software package and asked to provide an expert opinion for a Polish court in a civil case involving dictionary plagiarism. The package consisted of a Polish-English and English-Polish translation programme as well as a Polish-English and English-Polish dictionary. The author claimed that an overwhelming part of the two dictionaries had found its way to a competitor's software package. Following qualitative and quantitative analysis I concluded that the similarity between the dictionaries was not the result of chance and that
The author(s) of dictionary A used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of dictionary B; or
The author(s) of dictionary B used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of dictionary A; or
The author(s) of dictionary A and the author(s) of dictionary B used lexicographic substance most of which had been created by the author(s) of a third, unknown source.
: : Dr Alison Johnson, FLAIR Associate Consultant
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts or talk in the English language.
Positions: Lecturer in English Language at the University of Leeds.
Experience: I have lectured on English linguistics and Forensic Linguistics for 14 years at the Universities of Birmingham, Huddersfield and Leeds and am author with Malcolm Coulthard of An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. My early career, before I became a lecturer, was as a police officer. I served for 6 years with the West Midlands police.
Qualifications: I have an MA in Special Applications of Linguistics and a PhD in English Language, both from the University of Birmingham. In my PhD dissertation I focused on pragmatic effects of questions and answers in police interviews with adults and children, University of Birmingham.
A sample case
I provided an expert linguistic report in an appeal case, which involved interpretation of syntax and meaning in a byelaw. The case involved the meaning and interpretation of the first use of the conjunction 'or' the following byelaw:
'(2) Any person to whom a licence is issued by the Agency to fish with any instrument other than rod and line for salmon or migratory trout shall within 7 days of the end of each month during the fishing season make a return on a form provided by the Agency giving particulars of dates, the locations and the time spent fishing and the number and individual or aggregate weight of any salmon or migratory trout caught by each instrument, or a statement that no salmon or migratory trout were caught by the licence holder or his agents.'
The argument revolved around whether there was any ambiguity of interpretation. The appellants, two of a group of haaf net fishermen who fish in the Solway using an ancient form of fishing, which involves standing in the estuary with nets as the tide comes in, claimed that the use of 'or' allowed them to record only the aggregate weight of salmonid fish caught, whereas the Environment Agency argued that the law required the fishermen to provide the number of fish caught and the total weight. The Court accepted that there was ambiguity, but the appeal was rejected on the basis that the first meaning was not reasonable given the purpose of the law, which is to allow the Environment Agency to regulate, monitor and, if necessary, replenish stocks of salmonid fishing.
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts or talk in the English language.
Positions: Lecturer in English Language at the University of Leeds.
Experience: I have lectured on English linguistics and Forensic Linguistics for 14 years at the Universities of Birmingham, Huddersfield and Leeds and am author with Malcolm Coulthard of An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence. My early career, before I became a lecturer, was as a police officer. I served for 6 years with the West Midlands police.
Qualifications: I have an MA in Special Applications of Linguistics and a PhD in English Language, both from the University of Birmingham. In my PhD dissertation I focused on pragmatic effects of questions and answers in police interviews with adults and children, University of Birmingham.
A sample case
I provided an expert linguistic report in an appeal case, which involved interpretation of syntax and meaning in a byelaw. The case involved the meaning and interpretation of the first use of the conjunction 'or' the following byelaw:
'(2) Any person to whom a licence is issued by the Agency to fish with any instrument other than rod and line for salmon or migratory trout shall within 7 days of the end of each month during the fishing season make a return on a form provided by the Agency giving particulars of dates, the locations and the time spent fishing and the number and individual or aggregate weight of any salmon or migratory trout caught by each instrument, or a statement that no salmon or migratory trout were caught by the licence holder or his agents.'
The argument revolved around whether there was any ambiguity of interpretation. The appellants, two of a group of haaf net fishermen who fish in the Solway using an ancient form of fishing, which involves standing in the estuary with nets as the tide comes in, claimed that the use of 'or' allowed them to record only the aggregate weight of salmonid fish caught, whereas the Environment Agency argued that the law required the fishermen to provide the number of fish caught and the total weight. The Court accepted that there was ambiguity, but the appeal was rejected on the basis that the first meaning was not reasonable given the purpose of the law, which is to allow the Environment Agency to regulate, monitor and, if necessary, replenish stocks of salmonid fishing.
: : Professor M. Teresa Turell, FLAIR Associate Consultant
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts written in Spanish, Catalan, English and French.
Positions: Professor of English Linguistics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), Director of ForensicLab, the forensic linguistics laboratory at Institut Universitari de Linguistica Aplicada (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Academic Director of the Master's programme in Forensic Linguistics (IDEC-IULA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain).
Experience: I have provided linguistic evidence for more than 15 years in criminal and civil cases. I specialise in a) detection of plagiarism (between texts written in Spanish or Catalan and between Catalan or Spanish translations of an original text written in English or French); b) authorship determination (establishing among several candidates who is the author of a disputed text), c) authorship attribution (establishing if a disputed text can be attributed to a specific author) and d) trademark litigation. I have worked on many different forms of written texts both in Spanish and Catalan: short texts, such as emails and faxes, medium-size texts such as informative reports in non-specialized magazines, and longer texts such as terrorist conspiracy documents, as well as text books. In all my cases, I apply both qualitative and quantitative analyses to ensure reliability and internal and external validity of results.
Qualifications: I have a Master's degree in Linguistics and ELT (1975), a PhD in Catalan Philology (1981) and a Master's degree in Forensic Linguistics (2008).
A sample case
A major publisher of Spanish texts books discovered that one of their former employees (who had started a private teaching firm in order to offer courses to train secondary teachers and publish text books) had co-authored a text book in Physics & Chemistry, which had flagrant similarities with their original text book. My analysis included one disputed text and a non-disputed one, which were compared for vocabulary and sentence similarity by using the analytical tool CopyCatch (D. Woolls, CFL Development) in order to establish linguistic plagiarism and for more qualitative measures to indicate the existence of copying of ideas and the directionality of the plagiarism.
As a result of my investigation I was able to establish that it was a clear case of linguistic plagiarism since the threshold level of overlapping vocabulary for the three basic structural components of the texts was very high: Activities (96%), Questions (98%) and Laboratory techniques (86%), thus proving that these two texts had not been independently produced. A more qualitative approach showed that copying of ideas had occurred because (to give an example) of the 12 Questions (not attributable to general or public domain knowledge) that appeared in the non-disputed text, all of them had been reproduced in the disputed text, both in terms of content and very similar wording. Also some linguistic and textual markers of directionality were detected. These included the consideration of the unity, completeness and coherence/cohesion of texts, and several linguistic parameters and discourse strategies (inconsistency in referential style, decontextualisation, and inversion in the grading of structural elements).
My report assisted the lawyers in proving that indeed it was a clear case of copying of ideas and linguistic plagiarism and the case was decided at a Madrid court in 2006.
Languages: I take consultancy work for texts written in Spanish, Catalan, English and French.
Positions: Professor of English Linguistics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), Director of ForensicLab, the forensic linguistics laboratory at Institut Universitari de Linguistica Aplicada (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain), Academic Director of the Master's programme in Forensic Linguistics (IDEC-IULA, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain).
Experience: I have provided linguistic evidence for more than 15 years in criminal and civil cases. I specialise in a) detection of plagiarism (between texts written in Spanish or Catalan and between Catalan or Spanish translations of an original text written in English or French); b) authorship determination (establishing among several candidates who is the author of a disputed text), c) authorship attribution (establishing if a disputed text can be attributed to a specific author) and d) trademark litigation. I have worked on many different forms of written texts both in Spanish and Catalan: short texts, such as emails and faxes, medium-size texts such as informative reports in non-specialized magazines, and longer texts such as terrorist conspiracy documents, as well as text books. In all my cases, I apply both qualitative and quantitative analyses to ensure reliability and internal and external validity of results.
Qualifications: I have a Master's degree in Linguistics and ELT (1975), a PhD in Catalan Philology (1981) and a Master's degree in Forensic Linguistics (2008).
A sample case
A major publisher of Spanish texts books discovered that one of their former employees (who had started a private teaching firm in order to offer courses to train secondary teachers and publish text books) had co-authored a text book in Physics & Chemistry, which had flagrant similarities with their original text book. My analysis included one disputed text and a non-disputed one, which were compared for vocabulary and sentence similarity by using the analytical tool CopyCatch (D. Woolls, CFL Development) in order to establish linguistic plagiarism and for more qualitative measures to indicate the existence of copying of ideas and the directionality of the plagiarism.
As a result of my investigation I was able to establish that it was a clear case of linguistic plagiarism since the threshold level of overlapping vocabulary for the three basic structural components of the texts was very high: Activities (96%), Questions (98%) and Laboratory techniques (86%), thus proving that these two texts had not been independently produced. A more qualitative approach showed that copying of ideas had occurred because (to give an example) of the 12 Questions (not attributable to general or public domain knowledge) that appeared in the non-disputed text, all of them had been reproduced in the disputed text, both in terms of content and very similar wording. Also some linguistic and textual markers of directionality were detected. These included the consideration of the unity, completeness and coherence/cohesion of texts, and several linguistic parameters and discourse strategies (inconsistency in referential style, decontextualisation, and inversion in the grading of structural elements).
My report assisted the lawyers in proving that indeed it was a clear case of copying of ideas and linguistic plagiarism and the case was decided at a Madrid court in 2006.
: : David Woolls is an Honorary Visiting Fellow to the Centre for Forensic Linguistics. His independent software company is a leading developer in the field of plagiarism detection software. This software is, for example, used by The Open University, UCAS (the British Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) and most recently the innovative music web site Slicethepie. He does not take cases through FLAIR himself, but he frequently supports other FLAIR consultants working on plagiarism and authorship analysis cases, providing advice and computational support to their analyses.
