St Mary's Calne
On Wednesday 16th March, the LIV and MIV (Year 7 and 8) students took part in a CSI workshop run by two ‘real-life’ Crime Scene Investigators.
As well as explaining their roles in the police force and as consultants after major accidents (eg the Ethiopian Airlines' crash), they had plenty of stories which captivated the interest of the students.
The first part of the morning involved the students putting on their ‘bunny suits’, working in pairs taking each other’s fingerprints and noting down the pattern types on each. They were then shown how to lift fingerprints off items using aluminium powder and how to accurately record evidence so that it would be admissible in a court of law.
After the morning break, they were given items such as drink cans and compact discs which had been collected after a burglary at a music shop. They were tasked with examining the items, taking prints, and then comparing those taken from several different suspects. Almost all the groups were able to successfully identify the culprit, many without having to use the ‘example prints’ issued by the workshop organisers, which means they had lifted the prints well enough to make a match.