When a crime has been committed and the prosecution or defence relies on evidence of voice recordings to prove their case, forensic linguist Paul Foulkes reveals that it is the work of phoneticians like himself who can ultimately bring about justice.
When a crime has been committed and the prosecution or defence relies on evidence of voice recordings to prove their case, forensic linguist Paul Foulkes reveals that it is the work of phoneticians like himself who can ultimately bring about justice.
Drug-dealers, robbers, kidnappers, murderers and even a cheater on the popular game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ have been exposed and brought to justice once forensic linguists have extensively scrutinised the recorded evidence.
Foulkes and his team often have to confirm a recording’s authenticity and identify different speakers to clinch a case. He reveals that in our technological age, the common use of mobile phones and recording devices means that criminals are often heard or recorded rather than seen by an eye-witness.
He states that voice analysis has helped solve difficult cases in England, New Zealand, Ghana and South Africa as well as shed invaluable light on incidents such as the Watergate scandal and terrorist plots involving Osama bin Laden.
Foulkes and his colleagues at JP French Associates, an independent forensics laboratory specialising in speech, audio and language analysis based in England, have the extensive task of dissecting and analysing recorded evidence to help solve difficult crimes and identify illusive suspects.
Having worked on numerous high profiled cases worldwide including the Hansie Cronje match-fixing case in 2000, where voice recorded conversations needed to be analysed to bring about the truth; Foulkes and JP French Associates reveal the importance of linguistic analysis in identifying criminals in our technological age.
Criminals beware; no longer are eye-witnesses the only people who can identify criminals. Foulkes’ high quality listening equipment, software and astounding linguistic analysis methods mean that witnesses can be tested to identify just a criminal’s voice while a detailed criminal profile can be constructed to help describe and ultimately find the perpetrator.
Foulkes spoke about his work on speaker comparison, decipherment of difficult recordings and speaker profiling at the Interactions and Interfaces conference which was hosted by the Rhodes Department of English Language and Linguistics last week.
