An excellent Crime Scene Training

As a young, I always thought myself as a 'detective', followed all the programs and had all the books and deerstalker hat and magnifying glass would often annoy my mom with sentences beginning with "It's elementary my dear mother .. . every time I discovered that siblings had eaten the last biscuit. Fast forward 30 years, and CSI (Crime Scene Investigation programs on TV), I found myself excited to read in my local newspaper for a place (CSI 4 A Day) in Essex in England offers the opportunity to become a Crime Scene Investigator for the day! The article spoke of the forensic investigation, fingerprinting, photography, evidence collection and even suspect interview! Real forensic training! How can I resist ....

Arrangement and booking my place was made easy by senior coach Peter Went (as it turned out, spent his entire professional life working as an investigator from minor offenses to murder and is now a consultant for many lawyers and is a University lecturer). I was sent an outline of the day, indicating how to find them and start and finish time. They have also advised me about local hotels, where I could stay if I wanted to stay overnight.

The day was simply amazing, the experienced trainers, all of whom have spent their career in forensic investigation, recreated a 'real life' crime scene environment from start to finish, and we (there were 10 on the course in total) were taken to a briefing room where we were training in the fast thinking, creative thinking and methodical processes and learn to study and how to find and lift fingerprints. We were then presented with professional survey equipment, including fingerprint dusting / lifting devices, digital camera and much to my pleasant ... a magnifying glass! We each also got (to keep) white forensic suits, CSI 4 a Day Investigator notepads and CSI 4 A Day baseball caps (not deerstalker I had hoped, but the magnifying glass is for it).

We were then briefed on the crime that had taken place when the victim was assaulted and had since been hospitalized. The group was divided into teams of two (a subtle competitive element that added to the tension). While other teams were demonstrations of audio forensic analysis (CSI 4 A Day guys have worked with some very high profile cases!) And the video analysis and facial mapping, we were taken to CSI 4 A Day purpose-built unit where a crime scene was been built for our study pleasure. We walked into the room and found the crime scene to a bedroom with a bed, some furniture, a broken lamp with blood on the fragments, blood stained tissues (all pretend blood), some torn paper, an open window, balaclava on the floor and a jug of a flask next to the bed - no blood on the pillow though ... ah yes, had lateral thinking teaching started to work! Use of equipment and the skills we had learned we eagerly started to investigate the crime scene, finding tracks, dusting for fingerprints, photographic evidence to be sent to the laboratory for further analysis and laughs when we amateurishly wondered what might have happened - I quickly became good friends with members of the teams that I had not met before the day.

Before we knew it, our time was up (all part of 'real life' process) and we had to leave the scene and report our findings. After a quick lunch (we were too excited to eat!) We were put into the roles of police investigators and interviewed our 'suspect' (in real life a wonderful man who was a retired detective - a very difficult suspected of interview who twisting and turning to our questions, which made it even fun). New evidence and testimony was then introduced! At this point we felt we were real forensic investigators, we worked together on all aspects of 'matter', crossover question our suspicions and got the results back from the lab on the evidence we had previously requested the analysis ... and we "nail him" ... oh yes, we were for the day, "forensic Gods' and we suspect would be" going down on a long stretch. "

Remembering my mother's chagrin, and with the crime, not involving biscuits, I resisted using "It's elementary ..." slogans all day, but apart from that I fulfilled an ambition to 'be' (sort of) a real life detective. We were asked for feedback at the end of the day (who went so quickly), and the only improvement I could think of was to replace the free CSI 4 A Day baseball cap with a deerstalker; think I will go dig my one off of my memory Safe for now. Nevertheless, my CSI 4 A Day white forensic suit, baseball cap and certificate of participation are all proud of place - great memories of an excellent day.