Goodbye

Given the current climate on the Police blogging world, the fact I have a mortgage, a Xbox 360 addiction and the overwhelming need to keep my job, I have decided to cease blogging on the world of CSI.

Unlike some other Police blogs my intention was never to criticise the way modern Police Forces are run, it's more informative whimsy than rebellious expose. I was merely trying to give people an insight into a great job and dispel a few myths generated by popular TV shows.

Unfortunately my anonymity is no longer guaranteed, also I'm sure that some of my previous posts could be construed as misconduct or disrepute if you looked closely as the wording of some force policies. To sum up it's not worth the risk.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who visited regularly and contributed their opinions, this blog will be deleted in a week.

Bye

CSI UK

Redux

OK, going to give this another go. Been absent from the blogging arena for a while, over the last year work has been less than shiny and the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was to write about it. Things have settled down a bit now and I am able to enjoy the job again without unecessary distractions. I'm going to at least try and update the blog once a week.

I have re-jigged things a little so any feedback is welcome, also if you want me to link to your blog then drop me an email. (and Mousie I can longer access your site :( and I would really like to start reading it again). It also appears that some have you have been visiting the site regularly to check for updates, thank you and sorry for the lack of action.

Social Help

Hello again! I have had lots of emails recently asking for help and careers advice, a lot in response to an earlier post I made. Now these people must be new around here, because I'm struggling to update my blog regularly let alone respond to individual emails!

My advice on the earlier post is still relevant today, but be wary of the current climate, you really, I mean really really need to stand out to get these jobs now as lots more people are applying for these type of posts.

However help is at hand if you use the popular social networking site known as Facebook, apparently there is a group on there called C.S.I United Kingdom (not affiliated with this blog). It has members across the UK who are either full time CSIs or people looking to get into that line of work. There is a forum within this group which can answer your questions. I believe you need to request to join the group so be nice.

Anyway I'm going to sheepishly slip off now before anyone notices I'm back (sort of).

Fly Tipping

Ooops it been a while, are you still there? Ok a mixture work/home commitments, the release of Grand Theft Auto IV and a lack of enthusiasm in general for my job for one reason or another have led to a bit of a lull in proceedings. Problem is I'm not getting regular flashes of inspiration during work that can transfer easily to amusing musings on this 'ere blog. I will try my best in future but I have less time nowadays to sit down and write.

Anyway, a thing occurred to me the other day whilst crouching over a three week old decomposed body of a local junkie in his flat, it's amazing how flies in their hundreds will find their way into any room with rotting meat inside and deposit their eggs. Even a huge industrial fridge that had been shut off by workmen over a long weekend, who had cut electricity cables to a small unit leaving it without an a larm and power. Amazingly these little blighters (the flies) found their way into the sealed fridge and were hanging around the meat like...well like flies on shit.

What bothers me about this is, a fly comes into your kitchen on a hot summer's day through an open door, and can the bastard find his way out? No, there he is repeatedly banging his head against the glass panel of the open door! Maybe my kitchen is just like the Island on 'Lost', they are drawn there by some magnetic force and there is an invisible barrier preventing them from leaving.

Intermittent Intermissions

Apologies for the lack of postings recently, normal service should resume in a few weeks or so. Things have been hectic recently with courses, wedding, holidays on the horizon and little time for myself.

Again if there are any CSI/SOCOs out there who would like to contribute a story, rant or flight of whimsy then please email me and I'll post them up.

So give me a few weeks and I'll get around to updating this blog.

Idiot Box

Nightjack - an excellent Detective blogger - touched on an issue close to my heart recently:-

'Lets not forget the witnesses who are more keen on watching Corrie that speaking to you. Excuse me, hello, remember me, the detective in the corner. Yes, I’m trying to talk to you over then din from your offensively large and antisocially loud plasma screen TV. Why would you want to turn it off, or down even so that the neighbours can’t hear every word? I’ll come back when there’s nothing on. Oh there’s always something.'

I can't think of anything more infuriating than competing peoples attention with that of the latest installment of Jeremy Kyle, Loose Women or whatever crap daytime garbage ITV is showing. It really is the height of rudeness in my opinion. I'm there try and help find the person who broke into your house and stole all your personal possessions, they would have taken the telly as well had it not been the size of snooker table.

It's basic manners, if someone visits my house and the telly is on, it goes straight off (unless they have come around to watch the football) or we go in another room, I even turn the radio off in the office if I get a visitor. At one job a guy was too busy playing a mate at football on his games console to tell me what happened! I kept having to interrupt them to ask pertinent questions each one followed by huffs and tuts as Rooney is freeze framed yet again on another shot on goal.

Saying that though, I was working during the England Rugby World Cup Final win. We had gone to see a man about his damaged car and we were dragged into his lounge to watch the final glorious minutes of the match with celebratory cups of teas and a tray of biscuits.

Nobody's Fault But Mine.

I was examining a Builder's van the other day. I hate Builder's vans, they are naturally dirty dusty things and full of crap, not the greatest environment for fingerprints to thrive in and almost always wind up as a 'negative result'. In addition to this the owner refused to have it recovered to the safety and shelter of one of our secured garages, it was raining and he expected yours truly to examine it on the roadside.

Now usually I would refuse under grounds of insufficient preservation of the vehicle and the Health and Safety aspect of examining a vehicle on the roadside, but my heart isn't made of stone, I understand that this van is integral to the victim's business and any unnecessary delay in using it could cost him money.

I am also aware that this is a lost cause given the factors involved:- The van was stolen with keys in the ignition, it's filthy, it had since been driven to it's current location and searched though by the victim and it had initially been taken a whole half a mile down the road before the offenders gave up for whatever reason. So I give it as thorough an examination as I can considering the circumstances and alas there is nothing for us.

Of course this now becomes my fault, I have not, according to the victim, done my job properly. Apparently there are lots of areas I have not examined, the steering wheel the outside surface of the window (which are soaking wet!), the handbrake and all manner of areas unsuitable for me to examine. I try my best to explain why there is no point looking at those areas and how there is no physical way I can retrieve fingerprints, but this is just met with a roll of the eyes, as if I am just making excuses not to do my job properly.

So then it's the Police's fault for not having an officer in the street corner at the exact time it was stolen! At no point does he take responsibility for leaving his van unattended, insecure with the keys in the ignition, claiming he should be able to (in an ideal world!) or that he has refused the chance to have the job done properly and give us an outside chance of a result. I was gobsmacked, I explain to him in no uncertain terms that had he secured his vehicle properly we wouldn't be having this discussion, but he has already formed his own opinion.

When will people learn that they are just as responsible for the security and safety of their own property as those that are paid to protect it and prevent it's loss. We do not live in a perfect world and sods law dictates that the only time we leave our valuables vulnerable there will be an opportunist little sod who will be there to relieve you of such possessions.

Wombling Free

Those American CSI programmes are great at moving the passage of time via the televisual wonders of the Musical Monatage - lots of stern looking pretty people heating and agitating test tubes, powdering items on large lightboxes and spraying things blue all to a sound track of old Who tracks mixed in with some modern classics. Basically glossing over all the boring stuff so they can get on with their dramatic one-liners "We'll let the science decide!" and their flicking of hair and creating sexual tension between colleagues etc etc.

So the other day I was sat in the office, taking an age to get my paperwork done and I thought to myself I could do with a montage here! So on goes the Ipod with The Who belting out 'Won't Get Fooled Again' and the work gets done a little bit quicker. However the montages in CSI show them processing evidence, looking under microscopes, ludicrously enhancing poor quality photos and general Laboratory work. Thing is we don't actually do any of that stuff in the real world, it gets passed on to other departments to deal with. We have an appreciation of each discipline but we can't multi-task like those off of the telly!

We just attend the scenes, collect the evidence bag it, tag it then pass it on. So all we really are, are just Wombles, making good use of the things that we find, the things that the everyday criminal leaves behind.

Sneer Trophies.

The other weekend the photocopier nearest our office had broken down (again!), so I found myself in the unfamiliar area of the 'Command Suite' using the 'never-fails-due-to being-underworked' all singing all dancing colour (gasp!) photocopier. It was eerily quiet down there during a weekend, not a soul walks by and I sense no life beyond the closed doors adorned with name-plaques and important titles.

Then I notice something I have never seen before, the trophy cabinet shining like a beacon of success in the corner of the corridor, shiny trinkets fight for space on it's laden glass shelves and I think 'Wow what a successful station we are, what have we won?, Force Football Titles?, Cricket Success?, National Police sport trophies?, Hockey?, Netball?, what?' I start to feel a sense of pride well up inside of me and I edge closer to the cabinet to get a glimpse of the etched wording on the surface of such reflective souvenirs that represent local greatness, my mind wonders to the lavish ceremonies where such relics are handed out and I wonder why I have never been invited (on Overtime of course) to photograph such events.

Then I find my answer, these trophies do not represent great sporting achievements at all, there are no gold medals from the Police Olympics, there isn't even one for the egg and spoon race. Instead the trophies and plaques read 'Best Call Handling Operations Centre August 07', 'Best Detection Rates June 2006', ' Best performing station Sept-Dec '07'. There was even a certificate for our Office! - 'Best Performing Police Staff Dept 2007' (tied with Personnel and Admin) it goes on to list the criteria this is based on - Receiving Phone calls, answering and clearing voicemails, attendance!! I could just imagine my acceptance speech ' I would like to thank the phones for making annoying sounds when some one is ringing, without which all of this could not be possible, I would like to thank my colleagues for doing the same and for turning up everyday.........'

When did we start rewarding mediocrity? What is point of receiving such adulation for turning up and doing what you are paid to do. These awards took no effort at all to gain other than doing the job you are asked and indeed paid to do! Why don't we actually concentrate on rewarding hard work that goes beyond our contracts of employment? What is there to inspire you to do better or work harder when coasting along brings such rewards. Now it's nice to have your work noticed and be thanked for it, but handing out trophies for menial day to day tasks doesn't help anyone and highlights the absence of good line supervision and management.

Right I'm off to polish my 'Makes a nice cup of tea' plaque.

A Small Shower

It's 10 minutes from clocking off time on the Friday night late shift, I'm checking all the open logs to see if anything drastic is coming in that might require my services before I slip out the door. One of the worst things about being on call is getting the key into the door of your house only for the phone to ring beckoning you back to work. The list doesn't reveal any immediate cause for concern, there is a big job going off in one the High St Pubs known for Drug Dealing, but they won't need me there surely? otherwise they would have let me know in the planning stages (ahem!).

To be fair, initially there would have been no requirement for me, but in between 30 odd officers bursting through the doors and climbing walls of the local, somebody threw a firearm into the beautifully landscaped bush that is the focal point of the beer garden. So halfway home the phone rings (after pulling over safely and turning the engine off) I answer the call and soon I'm driving in the opposite direction back to work.

At the scene, most of the remaining clientèle are being searched for contraband and are leaving for another Pub, the bush in the Beer Garden is dramatically cordoned off with Police Tape. I am informed by the Sergeant heading the raid that Firearms Officers are tied up with other incidents across the force and may be a while. I can't do anything with the Gun until it is made safe by Firearms, so I start racking up some photos in the dark, this usually takes a while in the low lighting conditions but I had the comfort of not being rushed so I ambled along at my own pace. Once that's finished, still no sign of Firearms and I am informed again that it going to be a few hours. I look at the sky to see if the weather is going to be a problem, it's a beautiful summer's night, not a cloud in the sky and I'm walking around with a t-shirt on and I've still got a bit of a sweat on, not a chance of rain ruining my scene, but ever the professional I diligently place a large plastic bag over the gun, you know, just to be safe.

So I have done as much as I can, the pub is now closed and just a few officers remain so I take the opportunity to have a kip on one of the chairs in the 'snug', then a free game of pool courtesy of the worried landlord. A dog handler and his drugs dog arrives to do a walk through of the pub and garden to find any discarded un-dealt drugs. From my comfy seat I wave a half-hearted 'If you find anything give us a shout and I'll do some photos for you', I remain in my comfy seat in the snug awaiting Firearms so I can finish the job. Nothing more is found by dog and handler, unfortunately no one had informed him about the firearm in the bush, until after he let his dog relieve himself in the garden! I jump up from my comfy seat, the Dog Handler looks sheepish, it's not his fault really, someone should be preserving the scene properly instead of sleeping on the job!(although there was an officer guarding the beer garden). Luckily for me though my professional scene securing skills meant all we needed was a fresh plastic bag instead of a new gun. There was no rain only a small shower.

Attach of Clones.

Every now and then our department gets it's very own, fresh out of the box, wet behind the ears Probationer Constable attached to our office for a day or two to learn the ways of CSI. Without an air of cynicism about them and overwhelming puppy-like enthusiasm they lap up our every word as gospel and vow never to contaminate a scene for as long as they wear the blue cloth. It's useful to 'get' to them at this stage in their career before they get influenced by the more experienced cynical weather-worn Officers.

Whenever I'm preaching to the probationers, I drill into them, please do not listen to anyone else but my colleagues and I in forensic matters, because, and lets not beat around the bush here, a lot of Officers on the street haven't a clue! If you have ever seen those fly-on-the-wall programmes that follow Officers around the streets, you'll notice that barely any of them put a pair of gloves on before, picking up the bloodied knife, searching the car or bagging up stolen property in fact those that do could be counted on a single gloveless hand. If you are ever near my house when these shows are on (not that I make a habit of watching them) you will hear a high pitched scream along the lines of 'Put some bloody gloves on!!'

This may sound like a trivial moan, but if you knew how much work actually goes into enhancing, lifting, scanning/photographing, examining and identifying those marks, then perhaps Officers may think twice about pawing their dirty mitts all over our scenes. I appreciate that when responding to some scenes the dynamic element sometimes puts other priorities first and that's understandable, but if you do handle something then just 'fess up, it just makes the process even easier, yes we may have a little giggle at your expense but it's all for the greater good.

Now I know you are taught in Training School not to wear gloves because you may wipe marks off the surface, but this is crap advice, your own fingerprints will either do the same or overlay the existing mark making them unusable. My advice is wear gloves and handle everything carefully and where possible don't touch it at all.

Join me next week when I'll be teaching grannies to suck eggs.

Cradle Snatchers

A bit of Crime Prevention advice for you all today. I am sick to death of examining cars that have had Sat Navs stolen from within. Sat Navs at the moment are the Swag De-Jour, mainly because they are easy to steal and are in high demand at low local junkie prices.

If you have a Sat Nav, don't advertise the fact by having a you cradle suckered to the windscreen, don't think you are being clever by taking it out if the cradle and hiding it in the glovebox or under the seat. Local scroates may not be on front pages of Mensa Monthly but they are not stupid, unfortunately some members of the public clearly are.

So if you are one of the many drivers incapable of reading an A-Z or a consumer of the must have in car gadgets then do me and my many colleagues a favour when alighting from your vehicle, remove your cradle, wipe off the sucker mark and take you Sat Nav with you!

(Can you tell I spent most of today looking at car windscreens)

Late Start.

Ooops it's been over a month since I posted last. I could say it was because I'm very busy being a dynamic go-getting CSI who puts his job before his home life and drinks straight whiskey until he passes out, just to block the horrendous crap he has to deal with daily which is sending him spiraling out of control and threatening his marriage . But the truth is more a combination of apathy and new Xbox games for christmas (yes I am a big kid and should know better).

Anyway, work wise it's been a steady year so far, but nothing to get excited about, although I still keep leaving expensive torches at peoples houses and luckily they have all been honest enough to ring me to tell me. I think the next time I lose one it coming out of my own pocket and I'll have to use the glow from my mobile phone to search for fingerprints.

So a belated Happy New Year to all and standby for more forensic whimsy in 2008!

Happy Christmas

Well, I have managed to keep this blog going longer than I thought and that is down to you good people dropping by every once in a while and leaving nice comments. So Happy Christmas to you and yours and I hope enjoy yourselves whatever your plans are.

Thankfully I'm not working this Christmas, so I'll miss out on the inevitable Suicides, crying kids (whose presents have been nicked by Billy Burglar) and the droves of Officers who say 'Oh!, I didn't know you worked on Christmas Day!, can you just check this.....'. Go away I'm trying to get all my work done so I can sneak off early!!

Anyway until the New Year have a good 'un and if you are working have a 'q' un! HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Low Copy Number

A judge has ordered an immediate review of LCN DNA following the Omagh Bomb verdict. For those unaware of what LCN (Low Copy Number) DNA is, it is basically a super-sensitive technique that can extract DNA from areas touched or handled by someone, that sample is then amplified, a bit like photocopy enlarging, until a usable profile is obtained. This profile is nowhere near as accurate as a full profile obtained from something like Saliva or Blood which would have a discriminating factor of 1 in a Billion of being anyone else, instead a LCN profile can give you a much more ambiguous result giving you a huge list of names of who it could be instead of who it most likely is. This list of names could be whittled down by Detectives based on geography, offender description or maybe flag up the name of a known suspect.

I would liken this type of evidence to that of a fairly tenuous eye witness account, it gives you an idea of who it might be but not enough to be used as evidence. In general Policing terms it's better known as intelligence and not something that you would base your prosecution on. I'm not sure in what form this LCN evidence was used in the Omagh case but to base your whole case around it would be foolish and at most circumstantial.

It would be a shame however if the FSS withdrew this technique in future as it is a very useful intelligence tool. I have had some great results in previous jobs where an offender wasn't known and just being given a name has opened up so many other lines of enquiry and other evidence gathered has come back to these people. On the plus side at least some of the clueless Police Officers will stop asking for us to swab every door handle in sight on the off chance that the force may fork out a couple of grand to process them.

Negatives

So there I was called out in the middle of the night to an Arson attack at a dwelling on the 7th floor of a block of flats. By the time I got there the Fire Brigade had made some initial enquiries and it turns out it was caused by the occupant who had be suffering from mental issues of late and this was his latest episode.

During the investigation the now homeless occupant turns up with a full and frank admission of starting the fire himself in the bedroom. Along with the Fire Officers we confirmed the seat of the fire in the bedroom, there were no other signs of forced entry (other than the size 9s of the first Fireman) or anything out of the ordinary apart from all his possessions now being a nice shade of black.

All that was required of me at this stage was photographs of the scene. This may sound like a quick task, but when it's pitch black outside and all the walls inside are pitch black the rules of photography change somewhat making it a more laborious task. In order to record all of the detail in a darkened room the use of flash is not enough as it creates as many shadow areas as it illuminates. So using timed exposures of between 15 secs and 1 Minute on a tripod mounted camera with fill in flash extends the average shot from a 125th of a second to a few minutes per shot. There will probably be at the very least four shots per room in a flat with six rooms so the total time of this type of job can take a good couple of hours.

Imagine my horror then when I had finally taken the last shot to find I had no film in the camera! There were a couple of officers still waiting for me to finish, hiding my mistake quite well I say 'Just changing films, got a couple of final shots to make and I'll be done.' Luckily at this stage it was very early morning and the sun was starting to poke itself over the horizon, so I quickly fly around all the rooms using the camera and flash handheld, five minutes later I have the shots I need, I pack up and leave. A week or so later the photos arrive on my desk and all things considered they didn't turn out too bad, not my best work but a lucky escape nonetheless. Thank god for Digital!

Negative.

Unlike those American TV shows, where an handsomely rugged male can walk into a Crime Scene and spot the smallest piece of case-winning evidence from 30 yards causing the suspect to break down into a full on reluctant confession, the reality is sometimes less sensational and we often end up empty handed and bow our heads and shake it slightly with apologetic sorrow and say ' I'm sorry there is nothing further we can do.' This isn't always the end of an investigation, there may be other lines of enquiries which the officer will deal with.

The reaction to this news always provokes wide range of responses, some people are very understandable and appreciate you've done all you can, others will expect it and would have usually uttered the immortal line of 'Your wont find anything mate!' as I walk in the door. Some, those that live and breathe the aforementioned TV shows, are absolutely disgusted that you haven't turned up with 3 other colleagues shining pretty blue lights, swabbing anything that fails to move and given the inside of their house a nice coat of silver. This is usually followed by the idiot mantra of 'You would do it if it was a Murder!', that's because a persons life is more valuable than an Elizabeth Duke bejewelled gold Clown Necklace.

Sometimes however, you will seize anything just to avoid giving the bad news as some people clearly have the worst luck in the world and your sorrowful apology will be the final nail in the coffin. On one such occasion a house had been broken into, simple insecure point of entry, small tidy search of a few jewellery boxes and off goes the offender his pockets bulging with a few generations jewellery. As I come to end of my examination, it is clear that the offender has been wearing gloves, due to the marks found on most of the things touched. Their wasn't any other useful evidence or a single usable fingerprint developed during the exam, yet I took away a few marks (of very poor quality that would surely cause hysterics at the Fingerprint Lab).

My reason for this deception was clear, this family needed a little bit of hope because they had lost all theirs. The family, a Father and his two Daughters, had been out during the Burglary, at the hospital for a follow up appointment for one Daughter after she had surgery to remove a tumour. The news wasn't good, it had returned, they had stopped off on the way home to visit the cemetery to update their recently deceased wife and mother and then returned home to find the house broken into. Amongst the Jewellery was a wedding ring, as the Father relayed this to me, he begins to cry causing his daughters to do the same. I diligently lift a few 'marks' , explain the possibility of the offender wearing gloves, but state that I will be submitting some mark anyway in case there was more than one offender or for some reason he removed is gloves.

I think they understood the futility of my actions, but they seemed to receive the news well and thanked me for my help. I still don't know if it was the right thing to do, it did help the situation, but I couldn't help thinking that it was a bit of selfish of me to deceive them just to avoid an unpleasant situation.

Project Thyself

Story Time! All forces have their Career Criminals, those that have been in and out of prison as often as we have been in out of the house (to go to work and earn a honest living). Once they have been caught a few times they start to get wise to the sort of evidence they are leaving behind and are twice as careful the next time, thus reducing the amount of times they get caught and increasing their opportunities of ill gotten gains.

During the Summer Hols a year or so ago we had a large spate of Burglaries to Schools on our patch with ceiling mounted projectors being the swag of choice. These particular offences were drawing a blank on anything useful forensic wise, huge woolly glove marks and careful points of entry, so DNA and Fingerprints were sparse or more accurately non existent, we had some decent Footwear marks but without the shoes to compare them to they were useless. Everyone back at the station had their suspicions on who it was and he a local scroat who seen his fair share of cell doors.

I made it my personal mission to identify this chap forensically, not because of my social moral conscience but because I was sick of trying to track down Caretakers during non-term times and arrange convenient times to conduct examinations.

After drawing blanks on another few schools I turn up to a particular school who have been 'done' for the third time in as many weeks. Same story again, tidy point of entry, woolly glove marks all over the place, projector taken and a half decent footwear mark. Although this one was slightly different as a more thorough search of the classroom had been carried out. 'How has he had time to search through here, did the alarm not go off?' I ask the caretaker. 'Well the PIR sensor in here is a bit dodgy and he's sellotaped some paper over it!', 'Has he indeed!' If this had been a cartoon then a bright lightbulb would have appeared above my head as well as Double Helix strands in my huge eyes. See the sellotape had come from the teachers desk, but there were no scissors in sight for cutting, the edges of the tape were rough as if bitten off! So straight to Lab it went, it came back with the profile of the chap we all suspected it and whats more his shoes were match to at least 5 of the other breaks in the area. So it was goodnight from him for at least another term or so.

Change gives the Illusion of Progress

So you may have noticed I have made some changes to the site! As the site is approaching 10,000 hits I thought that is was time for a change to maintain some momentum and take the opportunity to reflect on site itself. You will see I have changed the colours to fall in line with the corporate image of most Police Forces and to add a bit of professionalism.

OK, I am not fooling you with my pseudo management speak, truth be told I am running out of ideas and instead of sitting down and coming up with another insightful, intelligent and witty post I ended up revamping the site a little. As you may have noticed my posting has been a bit sparse of late, but I'm still getting people visiting here each day so I must be doing something right.

So if you have been visiting the site recently in the vain hope that I have posted another nugget of pure Blog gold then thank you and sorry for the lack of activity. I will be continuing to post as often as possible, but if you have any suggestions on what sort of things you would like me to post then drop me a line. If you are a CSI in the UK or indeed anywhere and you want to contribute with your own stories then let me know I'll be more than happy to oblige.

Finally if you have linked to my blog and I have not reciprocated then I apologise, drop me an email or leave a comment and I'll deal with it. Also my links section is looking a bit slim so if you want me to add a link let me know.

Praying on a Victim.

The other night I was on call, the significance of this is, if I get turned out in the wee hours of the morning, then, thanks to the European Time Directive, I basically get the following day off. When my turn on call falls on the Wednesday before my long weekend off (Fri, Sat, Sun) then I am usually at home praying for a call out to help secure an extra long weekend for myself.

The obvious problem with this is, that it is incredibly selfish to hope that a crime occurs, sufficient enough to need examining, just so I can start my weekend early. Of course crimes are not going to occur as a result of my wishes (unless there is a God and he/she is a bastard) but it goes to show that at times I am so far detached from the reality of my job.

In the end the decision to get called out is way out of my control, but I know that if I do I will treat the examination with my usual level of professionalism (as professional as you can get on 2 hours sleep), I will be thorough and do everything within my power to assist the investigation. But is it enough?, if you cannot emphasise with the victim are you giving 100% to this particular incident? Probably, probably not, sometimes not being emotionally involved in something can give you a clearer perspective and sometimes getting caught up in the drama can spur you on.

Either way there will be days when jobs will peak my interest and days when jobs pass by in a blur. Whichever way it goes I hope that it makes no difference to my contribution and I feel I have been doing the job long enough to know what I am doing. Still I think its healthy remember why I am doing this and put it into some sort of context within this world.

(Bloody hell thats a bit deep, think I need a beer!)