It was Oscar O’Neill’s 30th wedding anniversary. Oscar was a hopeless romantic: his attempts to be romantic were hopeless. That was one reason why it was also the 29th anniversary of the day his wife left him.
Oscar was therefore in a rather melancholy mood when DI Stott rang to tell him that a contact lens had been found at a crime scene and he wanted Oscar to have a look at it.
Later that afternoon, Stott brought an evidence bag containing a small pot. Oscar opened the pot to reveal a rigid lens in some solution. Stott explained that a suspect appeared to have lost the lens during a scuffle with a jeweller while trying to steal a diamond necklace from a window display. Forensics had failed to find enough DNA on the lens to be helpful.
Oscar was glad he’s kept his two-position keratometer which had an attachment for measuring the BCOR of rigid lenses, as he didn’t want to risk sending important evidence to a laboratory. Within reasonable tolerances, he reckoned the lens was 7.65/9.50/-4.25.
Later that day, Oscar crammed the keratometer into his car along with his regular domiciliary equipment. But he was unprepared for what he saw when entered the room containing the suspect. Long fair hair surrounded a perfect face with large blue eyes. If Oscar had programmed his ideal woman into a computer, it would have printed out an image of the suspect, Juliet Adams. Oscar’s jaw fell open, and when Juliet’s soft voice asked “Are you going to examine my eyes?” it was as much as he could do to squeak out a “Yes” without dribbling down his shirt.
Somehow, Oscar managed to conduct an eye examination. Juliet was wearing a right rigid contact lens, and explained that her left one “must have fallen out sometime”. Oscar found her left spectacle prescription to be -4.50/-0.75 x 180, and her K-readings were 7.70@180; 7.55@90. Her right contact lens was the same colour blue as the lens Oscar had been given by Stott.
Oscar relayed his findings to the DI. “So you’re certain the lens belongs to the suspect, Oscar?” “I can’t be certain” Oscar replied”. “There’s a possibility the lens could belong to someone else, especially a close relative”. “Ah, I see our suspect has worked her charms on you” Stott replied. “We know she’s carried out loads of thefts over the years, but all she has to do is smile at the jury and she gets away with it”.
Not this time, however. She’d worn a scarf covering most of her face, but in the struggle the jeweller had partly undone it, enough to recognise her in a line up. Combined with the contact lens evidence, she was found guilty. The judge gave her a suspended sentence, convinced by her story that she had “found God” and was going to join a nunnery.
The police’s reaction to this was best summed up by Sergeant Donohue: “There’s as much chance of Juliet Adams becoming a nun as of Donald Trump becoming an imam”. As for Oscar, he felt that the one time that his evidence was really useful was the one time he didn’t want it to be. The story of Oscar and Juliet turned out to be neither love story nor tragedy, even if it did have an element of farce.
Read more from Oscar
A fatal prescription? (part 1)
No grounds for appeal (part 2)
