NSW Branch NewsletterFebruary 2019

@anzfss_nsw

@anzfssnsw

nswbranch@anzfss.org

Get in Touch!WHERE: The Forresters

336 Riley St, Surry Hills

WHEN: 20th February, from 6pmBar tab & nibbles provided

COST: Free for Members$20 Non-members

RSVP at https://members.anzfss.org/booking.php?id=101

Social Meet & GreetANZFSS NSW Branch Committee

Join us for our first event of the year…..

24th ANZFSS Symposium 9th-13th September 2018

The ANZFSS 24th International Symposium themed ‘ForensicScience Without Borders’ was held on the 9th-13th ofSeptember 2018. Among the 800 delegates from aroundAustralia and the world were a large number of NSW branchmembers representing a wide range of forensic disciplines. ThePerth branch should be congratulated on an exceptionalconference filled with great science and a fun social program.

Across the four days of presentations, delegates heard from avariety of plenary presenters on topics including HumanitarianForensics, DNA, Toxicology, Military Forensics, CBRN,Fingerprints, Digital Forensics, and Forensic Science from theperspective of the victims of crime. Over 320 oral presentationsand 215 poster presentations were delivered across 17 forensicscience streams throughout the four days of the conference.Eighteen workshops were also held, with a range of topicsincluding DNA, pathology and palynology. Delegates weretreated to a packed scientific programme that also included aWednesday evening public lecture delivered by Dr Max M Houckand a panel discussion on DNA intelligence, the latter of whichwas organised by former NSW President, Ali Sears, and featuredour current NSW branch Vice President, Dr Jen Raymond.

24th ANZFSS Symposium 9th-13th September 2018

A number of NSW branch members were awarded prizes at theSymposium, and we would like to give our congratulations to;

James Wallman - Best oral presentation in Wildlife and ForensicTaphonomy titled “Context effects in forensic entomology anduse of sequential unmasking in casework”

Dominic Raneri - Best oral presentation in Electronic and DigitalEvidence titled “Reconstructing the Lindt Cafe Siege”

Vitor Taranto - Best poster in Fire and Explosions “The Analysisof Organic Explosives in Vapour Samples Using a Lab-on-a-chipInstrument”

Natasha Benson - Best oral presentation in Fire and Explosionstitled “Validation of a novel detector for microfluidic paper-based analytical devices with Nitro-Aromatic explosives usingfluorescent quenching”

Nicole Cattarosi - Best poster in Illicit Drugs and ClandestineLaboratories titled “Comparison of authentic and synthetictraining aids for drug-detection dogs - Cocaine, Heroin andMarijuana”

Maiken Ueland - Best poster in Wildlife and ForensicTaphonomy titled “The use of human lipid biomarkers forpostmortem interval estimation”

ANZFSS Symposium Scholarship Winners10th October 2018

Search and Recovery of Human Remains and AssociatedEvidence in a Mass Disaster Scenario

Maiken Ueland, UTS & AFTER - Michael Dawson Award

Maiken kicked off the night with an engaging talk on her workat the Australian Facility for Taphonomic ExperimentalResearch (AFTER). The talk focussed on the outcomes andlessons learned from her most recent project studying searchand recovery efforts in mass disaster scenarios, such as abuilding collapse. A key finding of the project to date has beenthe differential decomposition observed between bodies inisolation compared to those co-located in a disaster scene.

Estimating Post-mortem Interval of Soft Tissue in aTemperate Australian Environment

Zachariah Knobel, UTS & AFTER – Eric Murray Award

Following on from Maiken was Zachariah speaking aboutanother study at AFTER conducted as part of his PhD. Zach’sproject aims to develop a robust visual scoring method toassess the progress of soft tissue decomposition. In his talk,Zach described how the method being developed differedfrom currently used methods by dividing up the parts ofbodies into regions that could be scored separately. This newmethod seems promising as a way of providing more accurateestimates of post-mortem interval (PMI) for remains locatedin temperate Australian environments.

ANZFSS Symposium Scholarship Winners10th October 2018

Taking the 'Secret’ out of Secretions: Evaluation of the EarlyAccess ParaDNA Body Fluid ID System

Felicity Poulsen, NSWHP FASS – Rebecca Kendrew Award

Felicity’s talk presented the results of an evaluation of theParaDNA Body Fluid ID System that was completed at theNSW Health Pathology, Forensic & Analytical Science Service(NSWHP FASS). The evaluation assessed the system’suseability and applicability for forensic body fluididentification in the casework workflow. The technology,utilising rapid messenger RNA (mRNA) analysis, was found tobe viable for the detection of neat fluids. However, it wasconcluded that the system was currently not robust enoughfor implementation into casework.

Next-generation Latent Fingermark Detection usingFunctionalised Silicon Oxide Nanoparticles

Timothy Lee, WSU – NSW Branch Award

Changing pace from the Biology-focused talks, Timothypresented the results of his study looking into the use offunctionalised silicon oxide nanoparticles for the developmentof latent fingermarks. The potential use of these nanoparticleshad been flagged in earlier publications, prompting furtherinvestigation. Timothy’s study compared the nanoparticles totraditional techniques for latent fingermark detection. Thesilicon oxide nanoparticles were shown to enhance theresolution of fingermarks under a range of conditions, animprovement on traditional methods.

Evaluating Early Evidence Kits in Sexual Assault Investigations

Rebecca Douglas, NSWHP FASS – NSW Branch Award

Rebecca’s presentation focussed on the results of an evaluation into Early Evidence Kits (EEKs) and their utility in sexual assaultinvestigations. Rebecca presented statistics on the number of cases where EEKs were received in addition to a Sexual AssaultInvestigation Kit (SAIK). In many cases, the EEK provided information not provided by the SAIK, which could be useful to assistinvestigations. The results demonstrate the importance of collecting EEKs as well as SAIKs. Currently only 5 Local Health Districts(LHDs) in NSW routinely collect EEKs. There is a vision to implement EEKs more widely in NSW LHDs following the results of thisevaluation.

Attendees of the end of year dinnerwere privileged to have Professor IanFreckelton QC as their speaker for theevening.

Ian has an impressive list ofachievements: he is a Queen’s Counselbarrister who has practiced throughoutAustralia; a judge of the Supreme Courtin Nauru; a tribunal member; aninvestigator of allegations of misconduct;a member of various boards andcommittees; a professor of law,psychiatry and forensic medicine; a

fellow of academies; a journal editor; aspeaker at international gatherings; aswell as an editor and author. He hasbeen a Commissioner at the VictorianLaw Reform Commission, a President ofthe Australian and New ZealandAssociation of Psychiatry, Psychology andLaw, and held a variety of internationalpositions. Wow!

Ian captivated the audience with afascinating insight into narcissisticpersonality disorder (NPD) and itsrelevance to the commission of violentcrimes. Ian started by providing anunderstanding of personality disordersand listed the features of an individualwith NPD, which include: having ideasand feelings of grandiosity, anexaggeration of talents, issues with self-esteem, trouble controlling behaviourand blatant self-promotion. Does thatsound like anyone you know?, he asked!

Ian believes that personality disordersare at the heart of most crimes and thatthere is a correlation between NPD andviolence. Ian showcased a number ofexamples of individuals with NPDassociated with high profile crimes. Jean

Claude Romand constructed an entirelyfictitious life which included pretendingto be a doctor. When Jean Claude feltthreatened that all his lies would unravelhe killed his wife, children and parents,almost killed his mistress and thenstaged his own suicide. Ian then spoke ofAnders Breivik who bombed a buildingkilling 8 and then went on to kill 69people at a youth summer camp. He wasdiagnosed with NPD and was describedas living in a delusional universe. ManMonis, who as we well know wasresponsible for the Lindt Café siege, wasdescribed by Coroner Michael Barnes asnarcissistic, antisocial, deluded andlacking empathy. Ian concluded byspeaking about Gerard Bayden Clay whohe considers a classic example ofsomeone with NPD. Bayden Clay hadhigh end narcissism or malignantnarcissism combined with antisocialelements. He infamously killed his wifein a narcissistic rage when he felt hisreputation and integrity were beingthreatened.

The ANZFSS NSW Branch committeewould like to thank Ian for deliveringsuch a fascinating presentation.

Narcissism and the Law – Professor Ian Freckelton QCEnd of Year Event 29th November 2018