How trainers could be key for solving crimes

IMAGINE a crime caught on camera, the perpetrator dressed in dark clothing, face covered. Aside from height and build, how do you go about identifying a suspect? To help answer that question, we're calling on you, the public, to contribute to our award-winning research project When All is Tread and Done. Keep reading to find out how...

- Claire Gwinnett - Professor of Forensic and Environmental Science, University of Staffordshire

IF THE SHOE FITS...: A trainer being 3D imaged for the research.

NEW STEPS TO IDENTIFY CRIMINALS

The number of cases in which footage from body worn cameras, CCTV and even phones is used has increased. Often, one of the few distinguishable features of a criminal is the shoes that they are wearing.

Over the past three years, we've been taking new steps to identify criminals caught on camera, thanks to funding from the Police STAR Fund. As any readers of Sherlock Holmes will know, the analysis of footwear impressions left at crime scenes has been an established practice since the Victorian era. Our approach, however, focuses on the upper part of the shoe to link offenders to a crime.

Working with West Yorkshire Police and my colleague Dr Megan Needham, we've come up with a simple process to capture a 3D image of any shoe seized from suspected perpetrators.