Taking closer look at world of forensics

Rebecca Picken tries hard not to laugh as she watches the CSI expert flick her blonde hair and lift her sunglasses as she finds a hair on the body she has been bent over.

Just ten minutes later and the glamorous TV star is back in the lab. As well as discovering who the hair belongs to, she has found time to interrogate a suspect.

"As a class we watched CSI just to analyse all the things they do wrong," says Rebecca, aged 17, who is in the second year of the BTEC forensic course.

"When we are at a murder scene, we have to wear protective clothing including suits with hoods, gloves and shoe covers.

"On CS,I they waltz in with their shades on and their hair flying about and manage to solve the case in record time."

Last week, forensic students were at City of Wolverhampton College's Cedars Horticultural Centre, in Compton Road, where a body – which was really a mannequin – had been put in a sheltered spot and evidence scattered around for them to find.

Course lecturer Dan Middleton says students are often surprised at how they are encouraged to specialise in one aspect of forensics.

"When people watch CSI they see one person doing a range of jobs, but that is very unrealistic," says 30-year-old Dan, who lives in Bridgnorth.

"Students think they do everything from collecting the evidence, through to analysing it, investigating the case and even interrogating the suspects.

"People have been tempted into forensics by what they have seen on television, but it is not a glamorous world – it is very hard work.

"You don't get through things as quickly as they do on TV.

"The quickest that DNA profiling can be done is in a day, not 10 minutes like it appears on television."

Students spent the day taking swabs and searching for evidence including cigarette butts, footwear impressions, bloodstains and stray hairs.

Dan, who studied zoology and law before taking a course in forensics at Kings College, London, says it is the creative side of the subject that interests him.

"Forensics is like solving a puzzle or a mystery. It is exciting, but at the same time it can take months to study just one piece of material, so it is not as fast-moving as some people are led to believe.

"We encourage students to specialise in one aspect of forensics such as DNA, blood pattern analysis or ballistics."

Dan says that as soon as students get to the "murder" scene they take photographs and decide on one path that they will take around the area, hoping it is the route with the least amount of evidence on it.

There are around 16 students on the second year of the course and 19 on the first year and Dan says they have seen an increase in numbers.

Karen Hollyhead, aged 49, says she chose the course at City of Wolverhampton College after doing legal work for the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation.

"I thought that if I was talking to the people in prison I needed to be able to know what I was talking about so I decided to do this course," says Karen, who has a 25-year-old daughter, Alex.

"Everyone watches the CSI programme and you just have to see it for what it is – entertainment.

"When you get into forensics you realise how unrealistic the TV programme is. I love the weapons side of it so I was thinking about specialising in ballistics, but the psychology side of it is very interesting."

Karen Hollyhead, who lives in Blackburn Avenue, Claregate, Wolverhampton, says she is also interested in the psychology side of the forensic course.

"We looked at people like Fred and Rose West and the things we learned were incredible.

"You learn about the criminal mind and, like in the new crime TV programme The Mentalist, you look at what drives a murderer and how they think differently to normal people as they rationalise their actions.

"CSI may be unrealistic, but like in the TV programmes, forensics is much more interesting and exciting than a nine-to-five desk job."

Video by Nicky Butler