Animated crash KOs inspector

COURTROOM RECONSTRUCTIONS: Computers recreate death crash scene

An unprecedentedly accurate animated reconstruction of a motorbike crash which appeared to be so realistic that a police inspector requested the sequence to be stopped was shown at Walsall coroner's court last week.

While animation is a regular tool in US courts, it was only the fourth time an animated reconstruction has been used in a UK court.

But it is likely to become more common.The result of a collaboration between the West Midlands Police Crash Investigation Unit and Aims Solutions, a high-tech company affiliated to Nottingham University, the animation sequence showed a crash resulting in two deaths which occurred in 1998.

It displayed the crash sequence from multiple points of view.

This allowed the witnesses to compare their accounts with what was shown in the sequence.

According to Dr Damian Schofield, who developed the animation technology used in Walsall, the level of detail shown at the court in Walsall was 'unprecedented.

It was similar to that shown in films such as 'Jurassic Park' and 'The Matrix'.

We even photographed the cracks in the pavement at the scene of the accident to get a very high level of detail'.

Dr Schofield said that a police inspector present at the trial asked for the sequence to be stopped.

'He thought it was too realistic for the relatives of the victims to see,' he said.

'But they asked for it to be continued so that they could see what really happened.'

The forensic research was done by PC Mike Doyle of the Crash Investigation Unit, who provided the methodology for the reconstruction.

He predicted that in the future animation would become increasingly important in court.

'Forensic experts give specialised advice requiring a degree of understanding in maths and physics that lay people don't have.

It's much easier and more direct for them to put it into pictures,' he said.

Rowland Byass