Our paint experts and surface coatings experts are specialists in the transfer of paint and other materials. Paint as a source of evidence in criminal cases is often overlooked, but it can be invaluable. Paint evidence is usually associated with criminal damage, burglaries and road traffic collisions but can also be important in cases where a weapon has been used in murder or assault cases. Most commonly, dry paint flakes are transferred to an individual’s clothing if the source (a window frame or door, for example) has loose flaking paint or if flakes are dislodged by forceful contact using an implement. In road traffic accidents, the impact between vehicles can lead to two-way paint transfer, which is evidentially much more significant. A paint expert will examine the transferred paint by microscopy and chemical analysis and compare this to the control paint sample from the incident. Using the results of these tests, our paint experts can then advise on whether paint recovered from a defendant, tool or weapon matches that at the incident scene and, more importantly, what this match means evidentially.
