Interpreting Evidence

Bernard Robertson, Barrister, Inner Temple and New Zealand Bernard Robertson is a graduate of Oxford, of the LSE, and of the National Police Staff College, Bramshill as well as being a Barrister of the Inner Temple and of New Zealand. After ten years in the Metropolitan Police, Bernard emigrated to New Zealand and taught the law of evidence at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He and Professor Vignaux have written numerous papers on Bayesian analysis of scientific evidence and of evidence and court decision making in general. He has also been editor of The New Zealand Law Journal and of The New Zealand Law Reports, ensuring that he has kept in touch with a wide range of legal issues, including civil litigation.

G. A.Vignaux, Emeritus Professor, Victoria University, New Zealand G A (Tony) Vignaux (retired) was a physicist and an Operations Research worker, and latterly a Professor of Operations Research at Victoria University. Prior to starting work on legal questions he published on the use of Bayesian methods in physics. With Bernard Robertson he has been invited to address conferences and has been consulted on several legal cases and by enquiries into miscarriage of justice. He has participated in teaching evidence and forensic science to law students at postgraduate level.

Charles Berger, Principal Scientist, Netherlands Forensic Institute, The Netherlands Charles Berger is principal scientist at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), and professor of Criminalistics at Leiden University. He specializes in subjects such as evidence interpretation and forensic inference. At the NFI he is active in a number of areas such as education and research about which he publishes internationally. He also supports the NFI experts, advises the management and oversees scientific quality. He is involved in promoting logically correct reasoning and concluding, introducing more objective methods, and interpretation at the activity level. For such improvements it is essential to explain them as often and as well as possible to all the stakeholders in the justice system. It is an exciting challenge at the interfaces of the worlds of science, police, and law.