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!)

Paperwork

Paperwork within the Police force seems to be the issue of the month for a few people, thanks largely to PC Copperfield's expose on Panorama.
Also Insp Gadget's rant further highlighted the plight of your everyday Police Officer once they make an arrest, the amount of paperwork and time this requires is quite frankly obscene and for what? Accountability? It seems ridiculous to me that the only way of getting a clearer picture on how well a Police Force is doing is to give them more paperwork to do and make them reach Home Office targets that don't really reflect the good work that goes on out there. There is an irony somewhere in all of that.

I am immensely lucky that the level of paperwork required in my job is pretty insignificant compared to that of an officer. A standard CSI report would be - I went to the job at this time, I recovered this, this and this, this is how it happened and this is where I'm sending my exhibits. Then if lucky, if it identifies someone then a 2 page statement is all that is required to add to file. The unfortunate thing for us is there is no real accountability in our paperwork, our stats would show, I've been to 75 jobs this month, recovered evidence from 55 jobs which so far have identified 4 nominals. Not a true reflection of my workload really, say that in that particular month I spent a whole week working on a Murder, this would count as one job, greatly reducing my daily average. Unfortunately, as is happening with one particular force at the moment, the management look at these figures and thinks, hold on were not performing as well we should, or there isn't as much work for these guys as we thought. Lets give them something else to do, or lets get rid of people and save some money.

The truth is there is a lot of good work that goes on out there by all staff in the Police, that is unmeasurable, or is not reflected as well on a management report. There are so many subtleties involved in all manor of situations that cannot be accurately represented on a piece of paper. So whats the answer?, If I knew that I'd be Home Secretary, what I do think is that there needs to be some balance in all of this and large amount of TRUST! We need accountability to a certain degree, so we know how to deploy resources intelligently, prepare for the unimaginable and ensure we are heading in the right direction. We also need to trust those out on the front line are doing their best and when not, that those responsible for them (Supervision etc) are trusted to deal with it appropriately.

It seems so sad to me that most of this paperwork is written so the Government can say, we did this, please vote for us again. I'm sure if Officers were allowed to get on with their 'proper' job everyday, we wouldn't need figures or graphs because we would all feel the difference. (but unfortunately feelings can't be measured).

Return of the Mac

Yes, I'm back! Am I glad ? not at all! On my many travels in the last few weeks, I had the pleasure of visiting some of the eastern states of America, including New York and Manhatten Island. There is something just so Cool, Cosmopolitian and Crazy about New York City that makes me want to go back there to live and to work. And of course they have huge budgets and cool vehicles and gadjets in the US. I have heard rumours that the NYPD are considering the complete civillianisation of their CSIs in 2008 and I am seriously tempted to apply and do a PC Copperfield.

I'm sure there will be a lot of competition for these posts, which may be a good thing as I couldn't get a decent cup of tea over in the US for love nor money, its a good job I took my own contraband with me.


This is Boston CSI Van, what do I get a an unliveried Peugeot Partner. Gah! the UK has no style! I bet even expensive shades and sharp suits come as standard issue.

Terminals

Mr Monroe doesn't speak much, it hurts to do so. Mr Monroe is in his late 70s and has terminal Lung Cancer, he trys not to talk too much, it leaves him breathless and in need of a sit down.

Only when I arrive on his doorstep I can't shut him up, neither can his visibly worried wife of 50 years. Mr Munroe is explaining that some men have visited and taken £300 of cash from his house, pretending to be from the water board, and he wants to, no, he needs to tell me what happened as well as walk around the house to show me all the areas these lowlifes have been. Only when he has finished does he sit down and catch his breath.

He he angry?, not really, in fact he is very happy that I have taken the trouble to come see him and he is eager to tell me all that happened. You see Mr Munroe feels it is his fault that he as allowed himself to be conned, he has read all about these incidents in the papers and seen the warning on the telly, yet he feels partially to blame for allowing 3 grown men access to his house to distract and confuse him.

I hate these kind of jobs they piss me off more than anything else I have to deal with.

This is my last post for a few weeks, I'm going away and not a minute too soon.

Morning After # 2

There is a half decent reason why I have been making fewer updates to my blog recently and that is due to an unprecedented explosion in my social calender. I have never been so popular, and it hasn't finished yet, this evening is one of the only few empty dates I have in my diary.

Anyway some of you may feel that turning up for work hungover may be unprofessional, especially in my line of work. It can certainly impair judgement, sharpness and even effort in carrying out my duties. It can increase the levels of sickness within a small office causing undue pressure on my colleagues. Basically it's quite understandable that members of the general public will feel aggrieved that this sort of behaviour occurs and that they are not getting the quality of service they desevre.

Fear not!, being hungover and being able to perform my duties competently whilst terribly unwell and hungover is all part of our intensive 9 week residential course at a dedicated Centre of Excellence in Durham. Drinking lots and being hungover the next day whilst attending lectures and mock scenes is just part on the on-going enduring struggle that myself and my colleagues of the future engage in at these top schools of excellence. That is why we are always prepared to react positively when a crime occurs. You don't have to thank me, I do it because I love you all!