Teesside University teamed up with North Yorkshire Police’s Major Crime Unit for a joint exercise for both organisations to learn. The event at North Yorkshire Police Headquarters in Newby Wiske allowed the BSc (Hons) Crime Scene Science students to put their theoretical work into practice, and enabled the Major Crime Unit to do staff training.
The day started with the discovery of a body and students had to attend with a Crime Scene Manager and assess the scene, formulate a scene examination strategy and process the scene. To add to the investigative process a second body was also discovered, which allowed the students to work at two separate crime scenes.
Tim James, Learning & Teaching Co-ordinator in Teesside University’s School of Science & Engineering, is a former crime scene examiner and helped to organise the session.
He said: ‘The students were able to apply their skills and knowledge in real time within a major mock crime scene. It enabled them to practice with systems and procedures which need to be implemented to support a major investigation in as realistic an environment as possible. This was a wonderful opportunity for Teesside University students to work with operational police staff and learn from them and to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.’
Student Leigh Allport, who took part in the exercise, said: ‘It was a brilliant experience to work with operational police and to get a feel for how close crime scene investigators and police work together at a murder scene.’
Fellow student John Dewar added: ‘The realism of the day, with the woodland scene and working with police officers, added a new level to what we have been taught. It is the kind of experience that I think will give us an edge in future job interviews.’
Detective Inspector Mark Pearson, of North Yorkshire Police, said: ‘Working with students from Teesside University was a fantastic opportunity, not just to assist in the development of future crime scene investigators, but also to develop our own skills as investigators. It gave North Yorkshire Police’s Major Crime Unit the opportunity to try out new incident management systems and briefing tools. From a personal point of view the crime scene scenarios were also very testing.”
