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00:00I have a challenge for you.
00:05The students weren't quite back from summer break
00:07as I arrived at the University of Lincoln,
00:09so it was fairly quiet at the think tank, the university's business centre,
00:13where I met up with Hillary, Dan and Heather,
00:15who teach at Lincoln's Forensic Science course.
00:18Tucked away, behind an unassuming door, is the Crime Scene House,
00:22which is where they do some of the hands-on teaching
00:24for forensic science students.
00:25I was going to have a crime scene to investigate, a break-in,
00:29and you can watch along, try your own bit of detective work
00:32and see if you can spot what I missed.
00:34What do we want to do before we go in?
00:37OK.
00:38Not contaminate the scene, I'm guessing?
00:40Absolutely.
00:41OK.
00:42All right.
00:42Protective suit, gloves, overshoes and hairnets.
00:45And over the rustling of us donning those protective suits,
00:48Hillary told me about one of the most important rules.
00:51And so my job is not to solve the crime.
00:54My job is to document everything that's happened
00:56so that someone else can be solved.
00:57That's not right to be right.
00:58What you get told before you go in
01:01and whether police anyone's there is really important,
01:04because if they plant an narrative in your head
01:08about what they think that affects the decisions
01:11that you're then going on to make.
01:12The one thing I know is that you haven't set up a murder scene,
01:15which YouTube Monetization thanks you for.
01:18There is very hot blood everywhere.
01:19But other than that...
01:20Sometimes they do set up murder scenes,
01:22complete with gruesome mannequin cadavers,
01:25or some students might get taken to an explosives test facility
01:28to look at blast damage.
01:30It's not like that's an everyday thing,
01:31the same way that's not an everyday thing for crime scene investigators.
01:35Most of the time, the students will be in a lecture hall.
01:37But there are some exciting parts.
01:39In a breakthrough reality, could you keep your masks off?
01:43Yes.
01:44Just because then we'll be able to hear each other.
01:46Yeah, absolutely.
01:46OK.
01:47So this is the downfall of most CSI programmes.
01:51Yes.
01:51And it's this thing that I'm looking at the TV going,
01:53why have you got your mask off?
01:55Yep.
01:56Yeah, it's not down the road.
01:58There you go.
01:59There you go.
02:00There you go.
02:00That's why I said laying on something.
02:02Yeah.
02:02It's the forensic scene hot.
02:05Before I take on the crime scene in the living room,
02:07I've got to learn the very basics.
02:09We start in the house's kitchen,
02:11with perhaps the easiest bits of evidence to spot.
02:14So...
02:14Yeah, I think I can...
02:15We've obviously...
02:16I can see the evidence here.
02:17That one's pretty clear.
02:20OK.
02:20Hold on, that said,
02:21like we've got the smashed glass.
02:23Yeah.
02:24There's also a very obvious lipstick mark just here.
02:27Yeah.
02:27And you said, yep, there's a bite mark.
02:30There was a yep that implied there was definitely a third thing
02:33to be found in here.
02:34Yes.
02:34And that would be the bite mark.
02:35Yeah.
02:35OK.
02:36There's one other thing.
02:37If you look at the glass in a little bit more detail...
02:40Fenty of prints?
02:41Possibly.
02:43Oh, blood.
02:44Yeah, so there's a bit of blood on the edge of the glass.
02:46Somebody's broken a bottle and cut themselves on it.
02:47Yeah.
02:48For some reason.
02:48So it could be it's just fallen off the surface.
02:50It could be that they're like, oh, am I doing haemostics?
02:52Or it could be.
02:53So this is what we do is we obviously test that blood.
02:56This is an alternative way that we do.
02:57This is something called a haemostic.
02:58So this is what a lot of CSIs would use these.
03:01And you just rub the pad against the blood and you add the water
03:04and it should turn green.
03:05Green is blood.
03:06OK.
03:06So what I'll do is, let's say we've recorded all of this
03:09and we know it's in situ, we can start messing around with it a little bit now.
03:12So we've got a bit of blood on the...
03:14It has only just occurred to me that this is not real blood.
03:17This is fake blood.
03:19No, this is real blood.
03:19It's animal blood.
03:20Animal blood.
03:21OK.
03:21I was like, hang on, hold on.
03:22You have to fake up the blood in the way that reacts to test.
03:24Animal blood is the obvious solution.
03:26Yeah, yeah.
03:26So we rub a little bit onto there.
03:28Yeah.
03:28And then we would just put a little bit of water onto here just to soak it in.
03:32Obviously this is...
03:34It should, as you see, go green.
03:36Yes, it does.
03:38OK, so we're positive for blood.
03:39Like all good fictional CSIs, let's freeze that shot, zoom in and enhance.
03:45Definitely green.
03:46One of the things I learned here over and over is that forensic science is slow
03:50and painstaking and involves a lot of tiny things that don't show up well on camera,
03:55much as Hollywood might tell you otherwise.
03:58The other thing we've got, of course, is the glass itself.
04:01Because glass itself will transfer in very, very tiny amounts.
04:05To the person?
04:06To the person. So if I break a window...
04:08You're going to have shards of glass on you.
04:10And then we can test that and we can compare it with the broken object.
04:13So studies have been done where they've looked at glass being made over a number of days
04:17and they look at the properties and they change quite significantly.
04:20And the more obvious things here, we have a bite mark in the apple down there.
04:23Yep.
04:23And we have, over here, lip print on the glass.
04:27Which I assume is, as evidence goes, pretty easy to...
04:30Wait, how do you lift a lip print? Just photos?
04:33So with this one you'd be interested in the lipstick itself.
04:36Oh! The actual chemical makeup of it?
04:39Because, again, cosmetics can have variation in their chemical makeup.
04:44The number of times I've gone,
04:46Oh, well, it's obvious you do what with that.
04:47No, no, it's not.
04:49Bite mark, you can look at potentially the teeth,
04:52the odontology of it, and also sort of...
04:54The what of it?
04:55Odontology.
04:56Odontology, okay.
04:57So for the teeth positioning.
04:59I assumed that the bite mark would be the obvious thing there,
05:02but it turns out odontology is really controversial.
05:06Almost all bite marks are just too vague an impression to be reliable evidence.
05:10But there's a much better option, swabbing for DNA.
05:13Apples are really good, because the skin of the apple
05:16also, like, cleans the tooth off quite nicely,
05:18and at least behind all the cellular material.
05:19Oh, okay, this feels like an obvious joke to make,
05:23but how do you do DNA testing for that and not get apple?
05:27I thought that was a silly question at the time,
05:29but apples have DNA,
05:31and so if you take a swab for DNA sampling from a bite mark in an apple
05:34and put that in a machine, surely it just says apple.
05:39That sounds like a gag from a comedy show.
05:40Well, Heather's the DNA specialist there, and she was happy to answer that one.
05:44We would extract the DNA from the swab,
05:46and when we do that it does clean up things like apple or food or things like that,
05:51so that it removes that from the sample.
05:55And then when it goes on to be replicated so it's detectable,
05:58because usually we're looking at quite low levels amounts of DNA,
06:02then that replication is only going to happen on the areas that are human
06:07or match the areas that we're looking at.
06:10So it's like a key and lock mechanism.
06:13We have primers that are specific to certain parts of the DNA strand.
06:19It won't connect if it doesn't fit.
06:22Wow!
06:22And the reason we've set an apple up here is because sometimes in burglary scenes,
06:26burglars like to snack.
06:28I think Heather and I have both dealt with cases where they've submitted things like a burger
06:32or an apple or remains of something that the burglar has opened the fridge,
06:36eaten something and left the remains behind,
06:37which is brilliant for us because we can swap it and get a result, you see.
06:41They love to drink beer or alcohol or stuff like that as well,
06:44because why wouldn't you? If you're already in, you're already burgling.
06:47You've already taken a huge amount of jewellery or electronics.
06:51Yeah.
06:52What's one beer?
06:53Yeah.
06:54So they'll sometimes do that.
06:55Burglars do weird things.
06:57Sometimes.
06:57Different parts of the English-speaking world use different words for
07:01the thing that burglars do.
07:03Some countries say that a house can be burgled,
07:06others say burglarised,
07:08and both of those sound really weird if you're used to the other one.
07:11Next up, the bedroom, which had been the subject of what the police would call
07:15an untidy search.
07:17This is Heather's room, all right.
07:18No, this is not Heather's room.
07:19That sounded wrong, you know what I mean?
07:21So we're going to start off at the bedside cabinet.
07:24Okay.
07:26Okay, well, cigarettes.
07:27Yes.
07:27That's the obvious one.
07:29This is presumably a smoker.
07:30Yeah.
07:30And there's going to be DNA all over that, I'm guessing?
07:33Yeah, DNA.
07:33Again, also, we can look at whether the manufactured ones have any...
07:39Brand logo.
07:40Brands, yeah.
07:41Yep.
07:41So then we would, yeah, so these ones obviously are roll-ups,
07:45so they wouldn't have any brands on them.
07:48But what we can do is when you make a roll-up cigarette,
07:51you obviously lick the seal.
07:53Oh, yeah.
07:54So sometimes you'll have different DNA on the seal
07:58than the person who smoked it, because somebody could have rolled it
08:01and then given it to somebody else and smoked it.
08:03Look, the smokers I know tend to smoke either cigarettes or roll-ups.
08:07Yep, so that could indicate that there's two people smoking.
08:10Yep.
08:10So could it be that the owner smokes roll-ups
08:13and the burglar smokes manufactured?
08:16Yep.
08:16Over here we have a dressing table as well.
08:20Cosmetics again?
08:21Yeah.
08:21DNA evidence?
08:22We've obviously got a lipstick.
08:23Yep.
08:24So we know that there's a lipstick mark, so you compare...
08:26So that could match the one on the glass in there.
08:28Yep.
08:28The odds of a burglar putting on lipstick during a crime are low,
08:32but I guess not technically zero.
08:34Now onto the bathroom, which was put together by Hillary.
08:36I think I can see a little bit of evidence quite early here,
08:39by the fact there's a knife on the floor.
08:41That feels like evidence.
08:43Yes.
08:43I feel like even an idiot.
08:45There shouldn't be a knife in the bathroom.
08:46Exactly.
08:47What do you think it may have been used for?
08:49Prizing open the cabinet, perhaps?
08:51OK, so why would someone have a locked cabinet in their bathroom?
08:54Medicines?
08:55Medicines, yeah.
08:56So the first thing about the knife is that we wouldn't just put that
08:59in a plastic evidence bag, because it would just fall through the bottom
09:02and stab yourself in the foot.
09:03Oh, OK, that's fair.
09:05So we have a special sort of collector.
09:08Oh, OK.
09:10And a weapons tube.
09:13Right.
09:13That would go in there.
09:14The weapons tube has metal caps on each end,
09:17so someone can't stab themselves while screwing the lid on.
09:19OK, so shall we look and see what's in the cabinet?
09:24Ah, oxycodone.
09:26Those are painkillers.
09:27Correct, yes.
09:28So we've got...
09:28Those are extremely strong painkillers.
09:30Yes, and they are prescribed, but they also have quite a high street value.
09:35Yes.
09:35We wouldn't necessarily assume that that's what it says on the tip.
09:39Ah.
09:39So we would perhaps start from that and check if it was oxycodone,
09:43but it could be something else,
09:44could be something that's been misrepresented as oxycodone.
09:47We would also be wanting to see, is the name and address on the drugs,
09:52is that related to anyone who lives here?
09:54Or it could just be sometimes you find a random person's medication
09:57because it's been sold on the street.
10:00We may also want to be looking at the resident,
10:03so is the resident positive for oxycodone?
10:06The real-life drugs in that container are just vitamins or over-the-counter painkillers,
10:11but it turns out that sometimes the forensic students do get to see the real thing.
10:16We do have a license here.
10:17Yeah.
10:18Yeah.
10:18So the students get to, as part of their coursework, get to actually examine...
10:22Small amounts.
10:23...real, real, under supervision, real, real samples,
10:26so they can actually see how it works when testing in the land.
10:28We'll give them an unknown powder that we've got from Border Force,
10:31and then we'll ask them to tell us what it is, so they do the testing themselves.
10:34I was going to ask where you got the drugs from, and Border Force makes sense, okay, yeah.
10:39And the other thing is, sometimes a drug has been mixed with other things,
10:43so it's less of an issue for tablets, it's more for powders and crystals,
10:46so we'll be looking to see, has it been adulterated?
10:48So, adulterated means something, another drug added,
10:51or it might have just been diluted down with something, you know,
10:53toughened powder, brick dust, all those things you might want to put in your body.
10:58So that's another thing, and if we have a pattern of adulterants being added,
11:02it can help us to link drugs to other scenes or cases.
11:06I also can't help but notice there's a lot of red staining in the ground there,
11:11which I assume is not relevant to any investigations today,
11:14No, no.
11:15But may have been relevant to ones in the past.
11:17Yeah, we might do a bloodbath, which is where somebody's been in the bath.
11:22Oh, that passed by very quickly, so just to flag it,
11:25when Hilary says she makes a bloodbath, she is not speaking metaphorically.
11:30She means a bath where the water also contains a lot of blood,
11:34and presumably one of those dead body mannequins they have.
11:38Forensic investigation is not for the weak of stomach,
11:41and I don't want to seem like I'm treating the subject too lightly here,
11:44but most of the time, forensic investigation does not involve drama or death.
11:50It is just meticulous work.
11:52So that's the three rooms of set-up.
11:55That's the sort of things that I needed to look for.
11:57In the lounge was the actual crime scene.
12:00And my job now was to be the investigator,
12:02to be the naive first-year forensic student.
12:05The bits of the investigation you're about to see have been shortened quite a bit,
12:09because forensic science is painstaking and slow,
12:11and requires careful decision-making and, frankly, torturous amounts of paperwork.
12:15I actually did two passes around the room, first logging everything I could see,
12:19and then investigating each thing in detail,
12:21in the order that was least likely to disrupt other bits of evidence,
12:24which is a really important decision to make.
12:26But we're going to show this as just one pass through,
12:30so don't worry if the little yellow forensic markers seem to move around in the background sometimes.
12:34That's not the mystery.
12:36Here's your challenge.
12:37I missed something at the crime scene house.
12:40All the evidence you need to spot it is in the next few minutes of video.
12:43The clues are all there, and there is a twist at the end.
12:47So let's go investigate a break-in and see if you are a better detective than I am.
12:53Now, I don't even know what I'm looking for here.
12:55I appreciate that the book there is Great Unsolved Mysteries.
12:59Yeah.
12:59Which is...
13:01Yeah, someone's had some fun.
13:02So the way to start to process it is to think about how would somebody do this,
13:07okay, and in the process of doing what they're doing,
13:09what are they going to leave behind that we can find from them?
13:12Okay, they're going to come in through the window, I assume,
13:17which means they might have left some evidence on here that looks a lot like blood.
13:21So we might want to use that.
13:22We might want to...
13:23Hey, I've got a number.
13:25I've got...
13:25Right.
13:25So, number one, just there, we did a simple test to check, and yes,
13:30it was blood which needed swabbing for DNA.
13:32Do you want to do it?
13:33I'll do that, yeah, if I can hand the camera off to you.
13:36Yeah, of course I can.
13:36Just kindly...
13:37Point it in your direction.
13:38Yeah.
13:39So because the blood is dry, you're going to want to wet your swab.
13:42So this is DNA-free water, because obviously some water will have background DNA in it.
13:49So this...
13:50Yeah, no, it's just a hell of a phrase, so pour on.
13:53Yeah, just a couple of drops, you don't need loads.
13:57Swab will sometimes be a little bit...
13:59That's it, as long as it's sort of...
14:00A little bit hydrophobic there, isn't it?
14:01And then you just need to swab up the blood.
14:06Oh.
14:07It's okay.
14:07I didn't do a great job on that.
14:08It's okay.
14:09I feel like I've just destroyed evidence there.
14:11No, when you've got that's enough, that's more than enough.
14:13Okay.
14:13That's all you need?
14:14That's it, yeah, yeah.
14:15That's such a tiny, tiny amount.
14:17And that'll give you a perfect profile.
14:19That will be almost guaranteed to give you something.
14:22Wow.
14:22This is more than I would get on most blood swabs.
14:25Heather has done a lot of lab work for actual criminal investigations.
14:29She's the expert in this, and I was astonished at just how good the technology is.
14:34Just a small amount of blood has quite a lot of DNA.
14:36Less, though, than, like, touch DNA,
14:38which is when you just touch something and leave your DNA then.
14:41We're able to get DNA profiles from really small amounts of blood.
14:45Wow.
14:45So when you say profile, is that enough to match a person,
14:49or is that enough to say it's someone who...
14:51What can you figure out from that?
14:52So we don't look at any DNA features that are phenotypic.
14:57So code for your hair or your ethnicity.
15:01We look at specific areas that vary between individuals quite a lot within the population.
15:06So there's a lot of variability.
15:09But they also don't code for anything that we know of.
15:11Forensic DNA analysis is not like those companies that go,
15:14Ah, probably has green eyes and a gluten allergy and they're great-great-great granddads from Algeria.
15:19They're testing for what used to be called junk DNA,
15:23but is now known as non-coding DNA.
15:25It's not junk.
15:26It's just got a more complicated job than eye colour.
15:29The DNA database itself continues to be controversial,
15:32particularly how long the police can keep DNA samples from anyone not convicted.
15:37Even just accepting a caution for a minor offence in England and Wales
15:40means your DNA will be on the database for life.
15:44Balancing civil liberties and potential crime solving is always going to be difficult.
15:48Turns out there's also a ballistics database, a footwear database,
15:51and, of course, a fingerprint database.
15:54Which brings us to the next bit of evidence.
15:56What I would tend to do is look around the point of entry.
15:59Okay.
15:59So how would you imagine getting in? What would you do?
16:04I'd have to climb up and come in.
16:06So if we go around to the outside.
16:08Let's start with the outside.
16:09Yeah, okay.
16:09I had jumped the gun a little by going straight in and spotting blood.
16:14I should have checked the window first.
16:16If you get the lighting right, you can maybe see...
16:19There's some marks here.
16:20You've got some marks there, you've got marks there as well.
16:22And a clear fingerprint just there.
16:24I placed a marker under the window.
16:26There are several techniques for dusting for prints,
16:28but the basic idea is to use very, very lightweight powder
16:32that will stick just to the oil and gunk left behind by fingerprints
16:35and enhance them so they can be seen.
16:37So because I'm not very good at dusting for prints,
16:40I wasn't trained to do it, I tend to cheat.
16:42Okay.
16:43So what we do is I use something called magnetic powder.
16:46Yeah.
16:47So we've got a little wand here which has a magnet in the end
16:51and you can pull this tab and the magnet moves up and down inside.
16:54Oh!
16:55And then this powder, which is black powder,
16:57Yeah.
16:57that has magnetic material in it.
16:59So if I dip, if I put it in the magnet...
17:00Well, black powder like the thing that goes into explosives or...
17:02Oh!
17:03As into carbon, black, carbon black.
17:05Right.
17:05So then you've got the magnet sort of shows you that
17:08and if I pull the magnet away it just drops away.
17:10Yeah.
17:11So it makes it a lot easier to...
17:12That makes it a lot easier than having to do the very fine work of dusting on...
17:16And the good thing about the magnet brushes is that you don't get any contamination
17:19because there's no bristles to contaminate.
17:22This is much, much more difficult than you might think.
17:25Although I didn't realise until later that while setting up the simulated crime scene,
17:29one of those three had to actually put their fingers, and it turns out,
17:32their entire face against that window to create those marks.
17:36How am I doing...?
17:37I'm definitely not doing that right.
17:38Yeah.
17:38That's just...
17:39No, I've completely messed that up.
17:41That's all right.
17:42I've completely ruined that.
17:44So because it's magnetic powder, we can just hoover it up?
17:47Of course you can.
17:50Yeah, I absolutely demonstrated that on purpose.
17:52I wasn't just plain incompetent.
17:54And you've got possible stuff here, maybe.
17:57You can just about see something there, look.
17:59Just about.
18:01Once the prints are enhanced, you photograph them,
18:03and also, perhaps, try to lift them.
18:06Essentially what you do is you just roll over the top,
18:10just to make sure you've got it.
18:12Get rid of all the air bubbles, because they can be a real pain.
18:19And then slowly what I tend to do is just lift it off.
18:22And it should hopefully line up over there.
18:28There will be sheets.
18:34That's a bit clearer, isn't it?
18:36And any CSI who's watching this will be telling me that my technique is awful.
18:40Which I know it is.
18:42But it's all about the powder.
18:43But you can see you've got this sort of pattern here.
18:47This sort of area here within the ridge.
18:50And that might be enough to match to a fingerprint.
18:51And that might be enough to match to a fingerprint.
18:52There were also several other fingerprints I missed,
18:55including a couple of big obvious ones.
18:57Never mind, I did successfully spot some hairs and clothing fibres caught on the window.
19:02Those were marked as number three.
19:03And the next bit of evidence would have been difficult to miss.
19:07So on the inside, hold on, hold on.
19:10I haven't spotted that.
19:12In the right light, there's a very clear footprint just there.
19:17In fact, two, one very clear just here and one faint just here.
19:22If I can get number four, please.
19:24Lighting is important.
19:25Okay.
19:26So I've got a little torch here if you want to see if it might show up with a bit
19:28of a bleak lighting.
19:29Which I'm sure you understand what that is.
19:30Yes.
19:32Oh, yes, it does.
19:33If you bring it further down to the plane, you'll see even better.
19:37Oh, wow.
19:39That really does make a difference, doesn't it?
19:41Just like the fingerprint, once it's documented in place,
19:44that can also be lifted from the surface.
19:47So we could use something called a gel lift, which is kind of like a bit of gelatin,
19:50and it's slightly adhesive, slightly tacky,
19:52and then that will lift the print onto the gel.
19:55So you'll see that.
19:56But what we're going to do is I'm going to use something called an Esla.
19:58Because it's good for dusty prints.
20:00An Esla is an electrostatic lifting apparatus.
20:03And if you remember that high school science experiment with a Van de Graaff generator
20:07that makes people's hair stand on end, it's that, but more precise.
20:12Apply a mylar sheet to the print, make sure everything's earthed properly,
20:16and then the Esla generates a static charge that sucks the mylar sheet down to the surface.
20:21And then you get the roller, and what you see, you can see the print almost on there,
20:24and then you just roll out any air bubbles
20:27to make sure that you've got contact with the print.
20:30We literally peel back the film, and there's the mark.
20:33That's incredible. That's like a magic trick.
20:36This is obviously the best possible circumstances,
20:39but still, to me, that was staggering.
20:41And it might just match up to the suspect's shoes.
20:45That's the point of entry done.
20:46Time to investigate the rest of the room.
20:48I'm going to, I think, start with the outside and go around.
20:51Okay, that's cool. I'll leave you to it.
20:54I'm just well aware of how much of a fool I'm about to look as I miss something obvious.
21:01I looked at the little bag that was stopping the door from opening.
21:03I looked at the couch, at the lamp, at the walls.
21:06There is a couch cushion just splayed down there, which should be over there,
21:11but I don't know if that's, is that just someone who's messy?
21:13Well, it's...
21:13Is it disturbing the scene if I just pick it up and have a look?
21:16You would record it, and then you can move it.
21:18Okay, so...
21:19So you've recorded it.
21:20Recorded it.
21:20Yeah.
21:21And then just have a look underneath.
21:22Nothing of interest.
21:23Nothing of interest.
21:24No, just a couch cushion. Okay.
21:27We'll ignore my GoPro and the security camera.
21:29The artwork didn't have anything of interest.
21:31I did briefly look at and mark a solitary earring that was left on the side just in case,
21:35but no, turned out that wasn't important.
21:37And we have some paperwork.
21:40Did you notice anything about the paperwork?
21:43It's financial paperwork.
21:44Mm-hmm.
21:45I've got to remember I don't know anything about this scene.
21:47There are all sorts of things that you may or may not know,
21:50but quite often you're dealing with limited information,
21:52and that comes to light as you go through the scene.
21:54So, okay, I will log that.
21:57Do I need to put a number next to it?
21:58And that paperwork had a few alterations on it,
22:01including some correction fluid, or as it's known in the UK,
22:04Tipex.
22:05That's a zero that's been changed to an eight.
22:07Mm-hmm.
22:07And then...
22:08Tipex on that one.
22:10I missed all of those completely.
22:12Unless you stare at that with a torch and someone clues you in that this is what you're looking for.
22:18Or you've had a lot of study and you're an expert in this sort of thing.
22:23The different pens might react in different ways under different lighting conditions.
22:26So we would take the pens and the document.
22:29Yeah.
22:31Your wording was really nice.
22:32You said altered.
22:33So we wouldn't be looking at that and saying it's been tampered with as fraud,
22:37because at this point that could, they all could be just...
22:40That could be just little notes.
22:42Somebody made a mistake, they changed it.
22:44Yeah.
22:45So we wouldn't be trying, at this point,
22:47trying to be saying what we think had happened.
22:48I poked around the rest of the room,
22:50but I'd found pretty much everything that the team had put together.
22:53I did wonder about a single hair and a glass that was slightly askew,
22:57but again, not actually relevant here.
22:58The amount of stuff you have to...
23:01And this is a carefully curated, planted scene on easy mode for a student.
23:07The real world is so much more complicated than this.
23:09So, what did I miss? And what did you miss?
23:13So we've got a bit of information that's just come through.
23:15Oh, that's handy.
23:17And this is helpful.
23:17And that we know that the occupant of the house is a non-smoker.
23:22Okay.
23:23Okay, so that's another hint. You can have a look for things.
23:26In this room?
23:27Or just in general.
23:28Just in general.
23:29I haven't seen any cigarette burns.
23:32I haven't seen...
23:33Have I seen cigarette ash and completely missed it?
23:35You want to come back out to the point eventually.
23:37So if you're unsure, have a look on the way out.
23:40Oh, the cigarette stud...
23:42Right, sorry.
23:44The stubbed-out cigarette that's by the door.
23:48Thanks.
23:49So that may or may not be useful.
23:51That's, that's, yeah, no, that's on me.
23:52I'll, I'll...
23:54So it's worth having me think about what kind of evidence you think you might get from that.
23:58Oh, that's DNA evidence, potentially.
24:00Yes, DNA evidence, yeah.
24:01Okay, so...
24:02Anything less high-tech you might be able to get from...
24:05If you try turning it over.
24:06Oh, the brand of cigarette.
24:07Right, yes.
24:08Yes.
24:08So it's really interesting with our students because they don't understand cigarettes to have brands
24:13because they've grown up in age without advertising of cigarettes.
24:17Oh!
24:17Because when you go into a shop, it's all behind doors.
24:21There's no sports advertising.
24:23So it's not an obvious thing that they would necessarily look...
24:25They wouldn't check for the word Mayfair printed on that cigarette.
24:28Yes.
24:29Did you spot it?
24:30Not the cigarette.
24:31Well, I mean, not quite the cigarette.
24:33I mean, the twist.
24:34Let's just do the wrap-up first.
24:35That was the crime scene.
24:37A very, very simple simulated crime scene.
24:39What I learned, mostly, is that forensic science ain't like the TV shows.
24:43And we want people to be realistic, so the ones who've been watching the telly don't always...
24:48They come in and they do their first crime scene and it's not quite what they anticipated.
24:52It's like how Jurassic Park caused a whole generation of paleontologists.
24:55Yeah.
24:56Yeah, yeah.
24:56CSI has done the same and it's not realistic.
25:00It has.
25:00Yeah, it's a very different experience, I would say.
25:07It's painstaking detail work.
25:09Yeah, it's painstaking detail work.
25:10I mean, the things that we've shown you today,
25:12so, you know, things like the trace evidence, like the glass and all those sorts of things,
25:16are not done as much these days because of budgetary constraints
25:20and the police focus on more things like CCTV and stuff like that.
25:23So there is a risk in the UK at the moment,
25:25we're going to lose some of our traditional forensic science capability.
25:28It is funny that he mentioned CCTV there,
25:32because my editors noticed something when they were going through the footage for this.
25:36It's only visible very briefly in a couple of shots.
25:39But you know that cigarette that I missed?
25:42I didn't miss it.
25:44It wasn't there.
25:47Is it too much to put, like, Ocean's Eleven heist music over the rest of this?
25:53In their defence, this was clearly a mistake.
25:56This was not a deliberate attempt to mess with me.
25:58I don't want them to look bad or feel bad about this.
26:01I just think it is quite funny.
26:03We started early in the morning and presumably they'd set the crime scene up the night before,
26:07which means that they only noticed the cigarette was missing when I was already in the room.
26:12I'm just well aware of how much of a fool I'm about to look as I miss something obvious.
26:18The cigarette, I think, got cleared up or something.
26:20The cleaners must have come by, and while they'll have been told not to disturb inside the crime scene
26:25rooms, that cigarette stub was not in the crime scene rooms.
26:28You can see in this shot, the only shot that I have of that entrance before I walked in,
26:33that the cigarette wasn't there.
26:35I don't have a shot of anyone running back to the bedroom to grab a Mayfair stub,
26:39but I can only assume that's what happened.
26:41And then, while I was looking the other way,
26:43there is a couch cushion just splayed down there,
26:46almost out of sight of the cameras.
26:48Professionally done.
26:49It's not until several minutes later.
26:51Quite often you're dealing with limited information,
26:53and that comes to light as you go through the scene.
26:55Which means that when I made it back round to the entrance,
26:58Oh, the cigarette stu-, right, sorry.
27:02The stubbed out cigarette that's by the door.
27:07Thanks.
27:07So that may or may not be useful.
27:09That's, that's, yeah, no, that's on me.
27:11My thanks and my apologies to everyone at the crime scene house.
27:15The story was just too good to tell any other way.
27:17And in my defence, you could have told me.
27:20Congratulations if you spotted the twist at home.
27:22If you're less like me and more like my editors,
27:24then perhaps forensic science at the University of Lincoln might be for you.
27:30Next time, I join a rescue team for an exercise that could have been made so much worse.
27:36So let's go here and see how to check this out,
27:36See you again,
27:36the next one-bye experiment.
27:36I want to go to find a scene.
27:36And what you do is I start to go here.
27:37And what I want you to do is I don't want you to do,
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