Angela Gallop

Angela Mary Cecilia Gallop (born 2 January 1950) is a British forensic scientist.

Gallop spent much of the early 1970s researching the biochemistry of chloroplasts in sea slugs on the Isle of Wight for her Doctor of Philosophy degree.

She began her career with the Forensic Science Service in 1974.

Seeking a more popular field as well as a less repetitive job, Gallop became a senior biologist with the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in 1974.

Aside from assistants and secretarial staff, she was one of few women in the laboratory; her boss did not think she could cope emotionally but her colleagues supported her.

She visited her first crime scene in February 1978, looking for clues about the murder in Huddersfield of Helen Rytka, later confirmed as a victim of Peter Sutcliffe.

She credits her determination "to give some relief to the family" to this case.

Since 1986, she has run her own forensic service companies.

Her findings helped solve notorious cases such as the deaths of Roberto Calvi, Rachel Nickell, Lynette White, Damilola Taylor, and Gareth Williams.

She also took part in the investigation of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, finding no evidence to support theories of a conspiracy.

She has been awarded the Order of the British Empire for her scientific contributions, detailed in her books, and has been portrayed on television.

Gallop was born and raised in Oxford, England, and grew up "tomboyish", playing with her brothers, half-brothers and her chemistry set.

Her parents, Eunice and Kenneth Knowles, divorced.

She was educated at Headington School but performed poorly and barely qualified for the sixth form, where a botany teacher sparked her interest in science.

She studied botany at the University of Sheffield and biochemistry at the University of Oxford.

By 1986, Gallop felt her workload was too large and her stimulation unsatisfactory, so she established her first company, Forensic Access.

She intended to provide services to criminal defence lawyers, who could not rely on the FSS expertise at the time.

Her advertisements initially yielded requests for infidelity investigations, which she carried out.

By the end of 1986, her business had grown enough to have full-time employees and she moved from her work from her home to a proper laboratory.

She soon began investigating murder, assault, and arson cases as well as cold cases.

She was commissioned by the defence in the trial of Robert Thompson for the murder of James Bulger.

By 1991, when she was hired to re-examine the evidence in the apparent suicide by hanging of Italian banker Roberto Calvi, Gallop had gained a reputation for her unconventional methods.

Realizing that he shared Calvi's proportions, Gallop conducted experiments with her husband, fellow forensic scientist Russell Stockdale, that proved that Calvi could not have hanged himself and that he was murdered.

Nobody has been convicted, but Calvi's family were impressed by Gallop's work and consider her findings essential.

The same method proved successful when she was commissioned to investigate the 1993 Murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager.

She contributed evidence to the Macpherson inquiry, which found that the initial investigation of Lawrence's death failed due to institutional racism in the Metropolitan Police.

Gallop founded another company, Forensic Alliance, in 1997, providing service to the police.

In 1999, the company solved the 1988 Murder of Lynette White after finding a microscopic flake of dried blood under two layers of new paint.

The police began hiring Gallop whenever they needed to review significant cold cases.

She was asked in 2003 to review the evidence in the 2000 killing of Damilola Taylor.

In 2004, the Metropolitan Police commissioned her to have a look at the forensic evidence relating to the 1997 car crash deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed.

Gallop found no grounds to support the claims of Fayed's father, Mohamed Al-Fayed, that the couple were killed in a conspiracy involving the British royal family.

Gallop's analysis of Diana's stomach content proved to Operation Paget that Diana was not pregnant when she died.

When investigating the Pembrokeshire coastal path murders, Gallop prevailed upon the police to fund the expensive examination of trace evidence, which led to the conviction of the murderer.

She considers this the most satisfying moment in her career and believes that the case would not have been solved without fiber examination.

She was commissioned for the case again in 2006, providing key evidence that led to convictions.

Gallop has also commented on the investigation into the death of Gareth Williams, the Secret Intelligence Service operative who was found dead in suspicious circumstances at a Security Service safe house flat in Pimlico, London, in 2010.

Other high-profile murder cases solved with Gallop's help include that of Rachel Nickell.

Besides murders, Gallop has been commissioned to investigate other kinds of criminal cases, including suspected incest, rapes, war crimes, and bestiality; in a particularly unusual case, she confirmed the presence of boar sperm in the abdomen of a man hospitalised with a punctured colon and peritonitis.

She has also worked on the investigations of alleged alien abductions.