Last updated at 15:23, Monday, 08 March 2010

For five years the body of John Charles Ford had lain undisturbed in an isolated woodland at a Lake District beauty spot.

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Until last month, when a walker discovered his partially decomposed corpse near Thirlmere.

In the case of Mr Ford, 41-year-old from Greater Manchester, there were no suspicious circumstances. But to evidence that, no doubt forensic experts meticulously combed the scene clad in their white paper suits.

It’s not the job of forensics to employ the sixth sense of the detective and piece together the circumstances that led up to a death or a crime. They’re there to deal in the physical fibres, imprints, specks or splashes of what’s been left behind.

Deborah Parsley is a CSI. She lectures one day a week at the University of Cumbria sharing her expertise with students on its forensic courses. She won’t say which force she works for and is frustratingly tightlipped about the tricks of her trade.

But it’s understandable given that her job, and those of the detectives she works closely with, is to stay one step ahead of the career criminal for the ultimate protection of the public.

Deborah used to breed gun dogs for a living. Now she hunts clues at crime scenes. “I woke up one morning and wanted to do something different,” she says. “I’m pretty determined and once I get something in my mind I do it.”

But is such grit necessary to be a CSI, often confronted as they are with the grim aftermath of a crime? There’s the gore – blood or semen. Faeces is also often found at crime scenes, particularly burglaries as offenders can get pretty nervous.

“Maybe it does make you more determined to catch the offenders. I don’t like it when I go to a scene and walk away with no evidence. I get a good kick out of putting someone in jail.”

Deborah’s skills have seen her collect evidence from the scene of murders, rapes, burglaries, and drug crimes. Forensics are also called in to gather evidence in arson cases, violent assaults, gun crimes and robberies.

A person entering a room or a space leaves behind all manner of traces they were there. Some more than others, however. “Unfortunately repeat offenders are quite clever – they get to know what they can and what they can’t touch,” said Deborah.

But they’ll all leave something. And the tiniest trace can be crucial.

DNA, invisible to the human eye, is used as evidence in an increasing number of criminal trials. And advancements in the field means that so called ‘cold cases’ can be solved many years after the crime took place.

Last year, Cumbria Police reopened the case of the baby dubbed the ‘Millom tip baby’.

At about 9.30am on December 1, 1989, a council workman found what he thought was a child’s plastic doll among rubbish at the gates of the town’s Redhills tip.

It was in fact the charred and mutilated remains of a baby boy, aged between a year and 18 months old, discarded among the everyday waste.

Nobody has ever been caught. The child’s death and who he was remains a puzzle yet to be solved.

But the force’s newly-formed cold cases team will be taking DNA swabs to try to finally solve the case.

Wendy Davidson is a lecturer at the university on the forensic and the applied science and technology degrees.

She is a DNA specialist and explains the use of DNA profiling in solving crime. “DNA can be extracted from a tiny spot of blood, from fingerprints or from the root of a hair.

“There’s been a lot of good work done with DNA recently because these cold cases are getting revisited. They just did not have the technology before.”

In DNA profiling, specific areas of DNA are compared between people. It’s usually an extremely reliable technique for identifying a match.

Although, says Wendy, other evidence is often needed to convict a suspect as profiling gives the result in a statistical form.

In the wider world of forensics, pioneering work with DNA is being used as a tool to halt animal trafficking. “It allows us to trace animal products and where they have come from. It is proving pretty useful in tackling the ivory trade,” she says.

Using forensics to lift the lid on the secrets of human history is an ever developing field. Danyelle Rafferty takes skeletons on tour with her business Sherlock Bone, teaching forensic students how to discover the story behind the bones.

She is a frequent visitor to the University of Cumbria teaching undergraduates to discover what sex a skeleton is and whether a fragment of bone belongs to a human or an animal. She can even reveal information about the kind of life the person led before they died – age, diet, diseases and even occupation can be discovered.

To qualify as a forensic expert, the 27-year-old worked in the field as a forensic pathologist in Romania. Here she gained the hands-on experience barred to students under more stringent British controls.

“It’s a different way of life over there,” she explains. “They have less of the homicides, but more of the major suicides. They also have more extreme weather conditions which mean bodies decompose more rapidly.”

Mr Ford’s body was identified using dental records.

But what happens when those records aren’t available?

Not everyone visits a dentist, according to Danyelle. This is where techniques such as facial reconstruction come into play.

Forensics sex and age the skull, then peg out its contours, moulding clay about the bones. From this, they can map out a two-dimensional image.

“It’s used as a last resort to try to identify someone,” says Danyelle. “It is controversial, because you can’t discover what colour their eyes were, what their ears were like, if they had any scars or how they wore their hair.

“But eight times out of ten it works. It plays on human emotions because family or friends have some recognition and that’s what does it.”

The public’s fixation with forensics is evident.

From the crime novels and whodunnit board games – Mrs White, in the library with the candlestick – to the raft of television programmes such as CSI and Quincy, we’re captivated by jigsaw puzzle mysteries and those who fight the good fight and piece them together.

Emma Pelech, another forensics lecturer and former forensic pathologist, dispels the whiff of glamour surrounding the profession.

“It can be winter, and you’re in a freezing cold garage in really unattractive crime scene gear and your hair is all messed up.”

Still, the world is sexed up for viewer titillation – the chiselled cast of Silent Witness manage to sizzle in their hooded paper romper suits. Yet, as with every crime scene, it’s what lies beyond first appearances that really counts.

“The most difficult thing I found was seeing my own mortality,” says Danyelle.

“But you get used to it. It’s a progression from seeing someone who has been run over to someone that’s been hit by a train.

“There’s a really good global support network, counselling and being able to talk to others about what you’ve seen.

“A lot of money is spent on these professionals, and employers want to keep them.

“You can’t be a sensitive sort of person who thinks about things too much.

“You need a strong mentality and to just get the job done.”

• To find out more about the University of Cumbria’s forensic science courses call 01768 893573 or visit www.cumbria.ac.uk

First published at 11:24, Monday, 08 March 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk