ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that the analysis of marks on bone has much to offer to both the investigative forces and the courts in relation to criminal dismemberment. Lord Thomas was also of the opinion that research within forensic science is an area that will require sustained development and constant efforts to continually validate the data required for the comprehension of the results by the courts. The single most important asset to facilitate such development would be open access to large ground-truth databases. The United Kingdom currently holds a National Injuries Database, which is a collection of data and images from suspicious deaths and murders Unfortunately, the development of, and the storage and access to, large data sets is both fiscally and institutionally challenging for researchers to achieve and maintain, but it is where the greatest advances in developing a robust scientific approach are most likely to occur.
