CLs could offer forensic clues

Optical practitioners' records may be vital in future forensic work to identify corpses. The Guardian (September 4) reported that after characteristics have begun to perish, forensic scientists will look to the victim's contact lenses, as long as there are well-kept records in the profession. Research at Bournemouth University is about to begin a series of experiments, involving soft and hard contact lenses that will be buried for increasing lengths of time in soil to measure the rate at which they dry under differing circumstances. Lenses with eyeballs taken from slaughtered pigs will be used in an attempt to match crime conditions. The lenses will be rehydrated in saline solution and then measured so that experts can work towards the original prescription. City University's professor of ocular medicine, Roger Buckley, said the work could be a valuable contribution to forensic investigations, in a similar way dental records were today an important method of tracing a deceased person. 'However, the majority of contact lens patients are going to be wearing daily disposable lenses that will prove little.' He said the work was likely to be restricted to gas-permeable, corneal and scleral lenses.