Everything That Makes Us Human by Jay Jayamohan

Author:Jay Jayamohan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Michael O'Mara

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CSI OXFORD

Golf can be very dangerous for your health. Depending on the company, that is.

During my time in Glasgow I came to recognize the differences between a driver, an iron and a putter. Not from playing the game or even watching it on TV. I really had very little interest in those days, preferring bars and parties. No, back then my entire knowledge of golf clubs stemmed from identifying the telltale impression that each one left when it was smacked into a person’s head.

It was the start of an interesting sideline to my day-to-day job – giving medicolegal advice to courts and investigations involving neurosurgical areas of expertise. I’ve been called upon more than once to give expert evidence in court about weapons used for assault or murder. Golf clubs are reasonably easy to identify. They leave a certain distinctive blunt trauma site in the scalp, skull and brain. Other implements require a little more investigation.

I was once called upon to look over evidence from a particularly nasty torture and murder in Newcastle. Four men had been arrested. CCTV showed them all attacking the victim, but each of them was wielding a different type of weapon: one had a hammer, one an axe, one a samurai sword, of all things, and one had a knife. The question was: which one had delivered the fatal blow?

Without a single person to accuse, there was a strong possibility that all four men would get off the murder charge. At least that was the angle the defence teams were playing. If the prosecution didn’t realistically think that they could prove which of the group was the one responsible, then there was apparently no way they could prosecute successfully to the level they wanted to.

I was called in to provide some thoughts. Very clearly all four weapons had played their part in the victim’s horrific last moments. The broken bones in the arms were caused by the hammer. The missing fingers were consistent with the sharp blade of the samurai sword. As for what had caused the massive damage to the head, however, that was unclear. Photographic evidence suggested it could have been the hammer or the handle of the sword or the back of the axe. The problem was, the head was so damaged in places that it was impossible to get a reading on what had gone on. Which is where my new toy came in.

I have special software which I can use to feed in the scans and reconstruct the original skull and brain shape. At the time, it was not widely used, although of course technology moves forward rapidly and now it’s quite standard practice. It was very CSI Oxford for its day. I was able to ‘rebuild’ the skull and brain at the point of injury. I found a very clear trauma tract in the skull and brain caused by a single blow consistent with the size, shape and weight of … the hammer. It fitted very well with the opinion of the pathologist who did the post-mortem.

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