Abstract
IN view of the application of blood-group tests in medico-legal problems involving disputed blood-relationship, it is interesting to note results of the test in a series of fifty cases which have been recorded by Dr. David Harley and Dr. G. Roche Lynch (Lancet, May 18, 1940). Most of the cases were affiliation cases; in these, as is well known, the blood test, while not establishing paternity, does eliminate false accusation by establishing non-paternity, the expected rate of establishment on the assumption that all men are falsely accused being approximately 32 per cent. In the present series, non-paternity was established in eight cases, or 16 per cent, a figure which suggests that about half the men were falsely accused, while half were in fact the fathers. The authors point out that while the percentage is not likely to be so high in the 5,000 affiliation cases heard in England and Wales in the course of a year, since in many of them paternity is not in dispute, but merely the amount of compensation, yet the fact that an appreciable number of men prefer to go to prison rather than pay suggests that the number of false accusations is by no means negligible. With improvement in the technique of identifying subgroups, the utilization of these factors should add to the value of the test in such proceedings by raising the percentage of exclusions possible.
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