This study therefore
aims to investigate whether indoor settings in domestic dwellings are
likely to have specific pollen assemblages contained within them that
may be useful for forensic investigation. Moreover, it is important to
gain a better understanding of the nature of such pollen assemblages
if pollen evidence is to be interpreted meaningfully in a criminal investigation where an indoor setting is being investigated.
Cut flowers are often displayed in rooms in domestic dwellings and
in a forensic context it needs to be considered whether an offender who
had broken into the house could have contact with surfaces or materials
within a room such that transfer of pollen grains may occur onto the
clothing of the perpetrator and even secondary and tertiary transfer
[16]. This is contingent upon the underlying tenet in forensic geoscience, first introduced by Locard [17], that ‘every contact leaves a trace’
and that contact can initiate a two-way transfer (in this case from an object in the room to the perpetrator and from the perpetrator into the
room). Since there have been no experimental studies undertaken to investigate whether the very specific pollen assemblages which can be
found in a room (perhaps as a result of a cut flower display), it is
presently difficult to provide acceptable evidence for a court implying
that pollen grains found on a suspect could indeed have come from acontact made in a particular room. This study aims to go some way to
providing an insight, under controlled experimental conditions, as to
the efficacy of such pollen transfers and their interpretation in a forensic
context.
Preliminary experimental work has demonstrated that pollen from
cut flowers is dispersed around a room onto all types of surface, with
most pollen found closest to its source (in this case the vase of flowers)
[1]. This is, however, one preliminary study and these patterns have not
yet been established as the general rule in different domestic dwellings.
We present here further and fuller studies in different settings to those
reported in Morgan et al. [1] in order to establish whether it is possible
to identify general trends that can be applied more universally in the
field of forensic science. These experimental studies aim firstly to establish the reproducibility of pollen grain dispersal throughout a room in a
domestic dwelling; and secondly the longevity/persistence of the pollen
grains in a domestic setting