Silent Witness or CSI might spring to mind when you're thinking about the world of forensics, but in real-life the police use lots of different methods to try and uncover the hidden truth at the scene of a crime.
Using cutting edge technology, the scientific support department collects and examines evidence and vital clues at a crime scene and help piece the jigsaw together.
The department is split up into different areas:
Crime Scene Investigators
Crime Scene Investigators or CSI's help in criminal investigations by collecting and recording forensic evidence from crime scenes like damage to someone's property, burglaries, stolen cars, assaults and murders.
There are many different reasons why the police take fingerprints but the most common one is to confirm the identity of someone. Fingerprints are collected from crime scenes and used to find out who has committed the crime.
Our fingerprint specialists can also use special equipment to enhance marks they find at a crime scene to improve the chances of identifying the criminal. Gone are the days of inky fingers, the department uses a special electronic computer, called IDENT 1, which collects and compares fingerprints.
Forensic services have staff who check DNA samples sent to the national DNA database and also provide their expert advice on footwear marks taken from crime scenes. They also help investigate serious crimes by carrying out forensic examinations of crime scenes including looking for blood and other forensic evidence.
The unit provides specialist photographic and video services, injuries photographed under ultra violet light and interactive 360 degree panoramas of crime scenes are just two of them. Photographs to be shown in court cases are printed on the unit's own minilab.
Videos are made to assist in criminal investigations, for operational briefings and training. CCTV footage provides evidence in the investigation and detection of crimes and this is processed by the Imaging Unit to produce still images which helps to identify the people or cars that might be on the recording.