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As a youngster, I always fancied myself as a 'detective', watched all the programmes and had all the books, and with deerstalker hat and magnifying glass would often annoy my Mother with phrases beginning with "It's elementary my dear Mother…" each time I revealed which sibling had eaten the last biscuit. Fast-forward 30 years, and following the CSI (crime scene investigation programmes on TV) I found myself excited to read in my local paper of a place (CSI 4 A Day) in Essex in the UK offering the opportunity of being a Crime Scene Investigator for the day! The article spoke of forensic investigating, fingerprinting, photographing, evidence gathering and even suspect interviewing! Real forensic training! How could I resist….
Arranging and booking my place was made easy by senior trainer Peter Whent (who it turned out spent his entire working life working as an investigator from minor offences to homicides and is now a consultant for many law professionals and is a University lecturer). I was sent an outline of the day with details of how to find them and start and finish times. They also advised me of local hotels where I could stay if I wanted to stay overnight.
The day was simply amazing, the experienced course leaders, all of whom have spent their working lives in forensic investigation, recreated a 'real life' crime scene environment from start to finish; we (there were 10 on the course in total) were taken to a briefing room where we were coached in fast thinking, lateral thinking and methodical processes and taught how to investigate and how to find and lift fingerprints. We were then presented with professional investigation equipment including fingerprint dusting/lifting devices, digital camera and much to my pleasing…a magnifying glass! We each also were given (to keep) white forensic suits, CSI 4 a Day Investigator Notepads and CSI 4 A Day baseball caps (not the deerstalker I'd hoped for, but the magnifying glass made up for that).
We were then briefed on the crime that had taken place, where the victim was attacked and had since been taken to hospital. The group was divided into teams of two (a subtle competitive element which added to the excitement). Whilst the other teams were given demonstrations of audio forensic analysis (the CSI 4 A Day guys have worked on some very high profile cases!) and video analysis and facial mapping, we were taken to the CSI 4 A Day purpose built unit where a crime scene had been constructed for our investigating pleasure. We entered the room and found the crime scene to be a bedroom with a bed, some furniture, a broken lamp with blood on the fragments, blood stained tissue (all pretend blood), some torn paper, an open window, balaclava on the floor and a mug by a flask next to the bed - no blood on the pillow though…ah yes, the lateral thinking tuition had started to work! Using the equipment provided and the skills we had been taught we eagerly set about investigating the crime scene, finding clues, dusting for fingerprints, photographing evidence to be sent to the lab for further analysis and laughing as we amateurishly speculated over what may have happened - I soon became good friends with the members of the teams who I had not met before the day.
Before we knew it, our time was up (all part of the 'real life' process) and we had to leave the crime scene and report our findings. After a quick lunch (we were all too excited to eat!) we were put into the roles of 'police investigators' and interviewed our 'suspect' (in real life a lovely man who was a retired detective - a very tricky suspect to interview who twisted and turned our questions which made it all the more fun). New evidence and witness statements were then introduced! By this time we felt like we were real forensic investigators; we worked together on all aspects of 'the case', cross questioned our suspect and got the results back from the lab on the evidence we had earlier requested analysis of…and we 'nailed him'…oh yes, we were for the day, 'forensic Gods' and our suspect would be 'going down for a long stretch'.
Remembering my Mother's annoyance, and with the crime not involving biscuits, I resisted using the "It's elementary…" catchphrase throughout the 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 (which 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; guess I'll go dig my one out of my memory box for now. Nonetheless my CSI 4 A Day white forensic suit, baseball cap and certificate of attendance all take pride of place - great mementos of an excellent day.
CSI 4 A Day is great, and they offer a variety of forensic training courses suitable for all ages as well as professional crime scene training and corporate team building programmes. They have a website with more information: visit csi4aday.com
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