Forensic Linguistics Tour
The example here relate to an alleged motoring offence. What was at issue was whether the defendent was guilty of reckless driving. As can be seen there are a number of parallels across the statement excerpt pairs.
The similarities do not appear to have arisen accidentally or spontaneously and it is notable that they all tended to incriminate the suspect in exactly the same way. In some instances, observations of this nature by forensic linguists have resulted in courts rejecting witness statements as evidence leading to a reduction in the seriousness of the charge or a dropping of charges altogether.
