Keele Research Repository

Visual materials are often neglected by legal researchers. However, as Dominic Janes explains, attitudes to appearances played an important role in the way in which many criminal investigations were undertaken, notably in the years prior to the Sexual Offences Act (1967). Analysis of aspects of visual culture played a role in the detection of many forms of illegal behaviour and the resulting materials provide a valuable resource for the contemporary researcher. These issues are explored through a case study that involves reading between a painting by the British expressionist Francis Bacon (1909–92) and a photograph in the National Archives taken during a police raid on a London flat in 1927.