title: A textile fibre survey as an aid to the interpretation of fibre evidence in the Sydney region.
abstract: Frequency figures of the fibre population on textile cinema seats were measured in Sydney, Australia, in winter. Sixteen seats were analysed from a very popular cinema complex, with 3025 fibres classified according to colour, generic class and fluorescence properties (100 grey-black cotton fibres only). The recovered fibres were mostly natural fibres (84%) with cotton the most common generic type (70%). On the contrary, man made fibres were relatively rare (15%) with rayon constituting the majority of these (51%). The most common colour/generic class combinations were grey-black cotton (33%) and blue cotton (30%) accounting for 63% of the total population. All other frequencies were below 5%, most below 1% using only the two properties of colour and generic class. Fluorescence properties were found to be very discriminating as far as grey-black cotton fibres were concerned. These features are considered and discussed and in particular, to emphasise the significance of fibres as evidence of contact.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Materials and Forensic Science, University of Technology, P.O. Box 123, Broadway, Sydney NSW 2007, Australia.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cantrell
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roux
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Maynard
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Robertson
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D005554:Forensic Medicine; D006801:Humans; D013784:Textiles / Q000145:classification*