Forensic Scientist All Over the Workplace

We push our rookies hard. They see the good...

How cool is this?

-..the bad... BOTH:

-Eww.

..and the downright astonishing.

We give them glamour...

CAMERAS CLICK

..show them excitement,

get their hands dirty... SHEEP BAAS

..put them under pressure...

-No, no.

-No, no!

-..make them laugh...

-Grrr!

..all so they can experience their dream jobs.

Today, it's goggles on and test tubes at the ready

as two rookie scientists dust for prints and search for clues,

as we make tracks into the world of forensic science.

Let's go All Over The Workplace!

Stop. There's been a crime and I'm searching for evidence.

Something very precious to me has been stolen,

and I am determined to find the culprit.

Actually, that's something our two rookies will need to be good at,

because they dream of a career in forensic science.

Will they follow the evidence all the way to collaring the criminal?

Or will it lead them to the wrong suspect?

Gotcha! That's my doughnut!

Oooh.

Hi. I'm Leila and my dream job

is to be a forensic scientist.

At home, my parents normally set up

a fake crime scene, and I have to solve it

with all this equipment that we have.

Hi. I'm Edwin and when I grow up

I want to be a forensic scientist.

Last year, my teacher put

on my school report that I asked

too many questions.

I think it's a good thing to ask questions, though,

because there's no way to get to

the bottom of things if you don't

constantly ask questions.

Where else to take two

budding forensic scientists,

but the City of Discovery, Dundee?

What do you think of the view, rookies? Look at that?

It's a very nice view.

It's a very nice view, but we're not here to admire the view, are we?

We're here because you guys are obsessed with forensics.

So what is it about forensics you love so much, Edwin?

With forensics, from one tooth you can tell

maybe someone's job, what they ate,

even what they look like.

What about you, Leila, what do you like about forensics?

It's almost magical.

And if you had a fingerprint,

you can find out almost anything.

And apparently, Leila, your dad sets up fake crime scenes

for you and your brother gets covered in tomato ketchup.

-He's always the victim.

-THEY LAUGH

Using your investigative skills,

you'll know what's going to happen next.

I'm going to find out what your parents think.

What Leila's going to find most challenging as a forensic scientist

is keeping still.

She's super jiggly, and when she gets excited,

the jiggling gets more and more kind of active.

And she's a giggler.

I think the thing that'll be a challenge for Edwin

is that Edwin's a natural leader.

In any group, he likes to take charge,

and I think he'll find it difficult if he's working in a team

where he has to sort of, you know, listen a lot

to other people's ideas.

Leila, you're a jiggler and a giggler.

Are you going to giggle when you see something really serious,

a serious piece of evidence? You're not going to start

-laughing your head off, are you?

-No. Definitely not.

Now, Edwin, you like to be the leader,

but what about if you're in a team led by someone else?

I'd probably try and be the assistant.

Assistant leader, I see.

-So are you ready for your first assignment?

-Yes.

Right. Come with me. We're going to the University of Dundee.

Forensics is the science that helps find the truth in a court of law.

Fictional detective Sherlock Holmes aside,

it's difficult for one person to know everything,

and so forensics is divided into different areas.

Elementary, my dear Watson!

Areas range from forensic entomology -

studying bugs and insects found on or near dead bodies,

to digital forensics - recovering and investigating computer files.

There are many other areas in forensics,

including forensic anthropology.

Forensic anthropologists study bones to determine whether they are human,

who they belong to and how they might have died.

Meet our first mentor,

Dame Professor Sue Black.

She's a world-leading forensic anthropologist.

In her time in the job,

her forensic expertise has been

crucial in a number of

high-profile criminal cases.

Sue and her team have even featured

in a TV series

which investigates skeletons recovered from historical sites.

What are your top three tips for becoming a forensic scientist?

First of all, you have to love science.

So you have to at your very core, I think,

be a scientist.

Then I think you need to not be afraid of hard work,

because it's an extremely tough job,

and I think probably the most important thing is

that you have to be absolutely and utterly scrupulously honest,

because your job is to help the court

do what's an incredibly important job.

Sue Black's top tips are...

Firstly, love science.

You've got to, at your core, be a scientist.

Work hard. The job's tough and the work is really hard.

And be honest about every detail.

Your job is to help the court find the truth.

What do you need to study in school to be a forensic scientist?

You have to do biology, you have to do physics,

you have to do chemistry,

you have to do maths.

Any one of those, but you have to have a good science background.

PHONE RINGS

Can you excuse me just a moment?

-I'm terribly sorry.

-Hang on. What's this?

Hello, Sue Black.

OK. I'll send Dr Hackman out, if that's all right.

But if you don't mind, I actually have two young people here with me,

and I think they would get

a tremendous amount of experience out of it.

Great. Thanks very much indeed.

Cheers now, bye-bye.

OK. I'm going to send you out.

A member of the public has been walking along the beach

and they've found something, they've called the police,

and my colleague, Dr Hackman, is going to go out there.

We've got a police car coming in the next few minutes.

-ALEX:

-Duty calls.

And it's been a pleasure.

Thank you very much indeed. And please get it right, OK?

THEY LAUGH

Our reputation rests on this, you know.

The rookies are being rushed to the beach,

where a passer-by has found some bones, as yet, unidentified.

Could they be human?

They're meeting Dr Lucina Hackman, who's an expert

in human identification.

The area has already been sealed off from the public by the police.

And Mark, the crime scene manager, is going to assist them.

Everything that we do has to be stage by stage,

so that we ensure we collect any evidence that's there,

we don't make any mistakes, and we record everything that we do.

Before the evidence can be recovered,

the rookies need to uncover everything on the scene carefully,

so it can be logged and photographed.

There's a lot of long bones.

There's a lot of quite small, thin bones.

OK. So, we're also going to take those photographs with the scale in.

So what the scale will do is show whoever's looking

at the photograph exactly how big the bones are.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten.

-That's ten. You happy with that being ten?

-Yeah.

The rookies must now carefully seal the bones they found

into police evidence bags.

All right, next one.

-ALEX:

-OK, we've collected the evidence.

It's in a bag, we've written it all up.

-Yes, yes.

-What's the next stage in the process?

That will now be taken to the lab, and then we'll have a look to see

-and establish a species that those bones belong to.

-OK.

First of all, work hard.

That's essential.

Study hard.

Get to know your subject.

The second is...

You never know just how important

what seems to be a very minor thing might be.

And the third is...

Somebody's liberty,

somebody's entire future

may depend upon how well you do your job.

The rookies are in the lab with Cat, a forensic anthropologist.

We've got a plastic human skeleton here.

They're trying to identify the bones they found on the beach,

to work out if they're from a human or from a different species.

So do you think we're looking at the right sort of area of the body?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Is there anything different between the one

that you've got there, Edwin, and the plastic skeleton?

This one's fused together.

It's fused. OK, so this is different.

So this is what we see on a human,

where we've actually got two separate bones.

What about the one you've got there, Leila?

-It looks quite similar with the shape here at the bottom.

-Mh-hm.

But here it's...

It looks like it's been chipped off.

OK, so it's a bit different.

-Yeah.

-Could this be potentially, like, a dog's leg?

You're going along the right lines.

In cases like this,

the report the forensic scientist needs to prepare needs to specify

exactly what type of bones have been found.

Then the police can decide if a crime has been committed.

So this is what you've taken from the beach,

and we've got a number of different specimens on this table

for you to compare it with.

For comparison, Cat has got skeletons of all the animals

found in the local area.

Is that at all similar to, like, that?

-It's bigger.

-It's chipped, and it's bigger.

It doesn't take the rookies long to find a potential match.

That's definitely from the same thing.

-OK.

-What specimen is that?

That's a seal.

All the pieces of bone are starting to match up.

What do we think it is?

-A seal.

-It's a seal. OK, excellent.

It's definitely a seal.

Oh, good - no crime committed after all!

My highlight was when we found out

that we were going to be going to a crime scene.

I was really surprised how down-to-the-minute

you had to be with it. Say you take a photograph,

you have to write down,

"Took a photograph at 13:31."

We had to be really, really thorough while collecting bones.

It was... It was really interesting, but also quite difficult.

I thought you did really well today, Edwin.

It's really cold on the beach, and a not-easy working environment.

Leila, you were great at taking notes today.

You made sure that your notes were neat. So, brilliant job.

Edwin, I thought your understanding and your awareness

of what you were doing was excellent today.

Leila, I was very impressed with how you approached everything today

and you had some really good ideas about how we go about

identifying whether something is human or not.

Meanwhile, at a hotel not far away from the rookies...

There's been a break-in.

Someone's up to no good.

This seems like a case for two rookie forensic scientists.

PHONE RINGS

I'll just get this.

Hello? Yes?

What, now? OK, yeah, we'll be right there.

Thank you. Come on then, what we waiting for? Let's go!

We can't just let the rookies loose on a crime scene.

They need some training.

Meet Raymond Skibinski.

He's a forensics consultant,

and was a crime scene investigator for 23 years.

There's not much Raymond doesn't know about gathering evidence.

Three top tips. I would say, first of all, you have to be observant.

Meaning, when you go to crime scenes,

you have to have a keen eye for detail.

Also, you have to be very conscientious.

You can't really make any mistakes.

And thirdly, I would say you have to be very resourceful.

Raymond's top tips are...

Be observant - you must have an eye for detail.

Be conscientious - you can't afford to make mistakes.

Be resourceful - you've got to find clever ways to solve problems.

So who better than Raymond to show the rookies a few tricks

of the evidence-gathering trade?

First up, dusting for fingerprints.

What I'm doing there is I'm gently putting the brush

with the powder on it. Can you see that?

-See the fingerprints there?

-Mh-hm.

The trick now is to secure them so that we can take them off

to the fingerprint laboratory.

And there's four fingers there, which is a little bit tricky,

but hopefully we can get all four...

And then we can lift it off.

You can see the fingerprints.

-ALEX:

-What do you think, rookies?

-Yeah.

-That's really cool.

Footprints can be collected at crime scenes in exactly the same way.

-That's... Look at that.

-Hello.

Very distinctive.

It's a good technique. Yeah.

Nice and smooth like that. That's it.

Next, the rookies are going to learn how to capture blood evidence.

If you can imagine that being

a drop of blood from someone left at a crime scene.

Very important you wear a mask at this point,

because your own DNA could pass on to this swab very easily.

Just hold the swab like that.

Put it back into its sheath.

It's time for the rookies to put their new-found skills

into practice to see if they can help the police catch the thief.

OK, so we've got this incident downstairs and we need you guys

to go down there and find as much evidence as you can.

Hi, I'm Alec Jeffreys, inventor of DNA fingerprinting

about 30 years ago.

Top three tips for being a scientist...

Never as a job...

And try and get hands-on experience in science. Do experiments.

The All Over The Workplace team have set up remote cameras

so Alex and Raymond can watch the evidence been collected.

Go for it, rookies!

Look for, like, a broken window, or something.

Here we are.

-Right...

-Oh, yeah.

-..let's dust the sill.

The rookies have found the criminal's point of entry,

and have gone straight for the fingerprint dusting powder.

So get the black powder out cos we're going to do the windowsill

-first, though.

-Oh, OK.

Edwin seems to be taking command.

They're working as a team, aye.

Oh, yeah.

Right, keep that.

-This looks interesting.

-Doesn't it? Yeah.

Looks like the rookies have struck fingerprint gold.

-So...

-Not sure if that is anything.

Right, don't record that, because it's nothing.

The rookies have decided it's not worth recording.

They haven't done a thorough job of the window,

and the bit that they did take, they decided it was not important.

They've discarded it. Yeah.

They've decided it was not good enough quality. That's debatable.

But Leila's using her detective skills to work out

where the burglar might have been.

Oh, here we go. Come over here. Blood.

-Blood.

-They've found the blood.

It's a bit sticky.

Let's dust up there.

He's a little bit heavy-handed with his dusting technique,

-I have to say.

-Yeah.

Have you just put the blood on the...?

-I think they've applied the wand to be bloodstain.

-Yeah.

So every time they spread that stuff onto something else,

-that could put the same DNA...

-Yes. Possibly.

Ha!

-Oh, there we go.

-Why is this on the floor?

Get the evidence bag.

-OK.

-Oh!

-Oh, what? Oh, wow.

-EDWIN LAUGHS

The rookies have found a muddy footprint left by the burglar.

A-ha! That is an "A-ha".

It's basically self-dusted.

Honestly, I think they've done extremely well.

They've found a blood lift.

They have found, eventually, the footwear mark.

Fingerprinting round the point of entry

was a little bit disappointing.

-Mh-hm.

-All in all, I think they've done excellent.

OK, rookies, time's up.

-OK.

-Your assignment is over.

Time for a bit of feedback.

You guys, I thought, have done fantastically well.

But Raymond thinks the rookies might have missed a few

vital bits of evidence.

We would dust this area all the way along.

-What have we got here?

-Oh, hello.

A lovely set of fingerprints.

Oh, rookies! You were so close.

The things that were going into my head when we walked

in the crime scene were like, "OK, this is really, really cool."

A lot of new things that I can learn by doing this.

What I enjoyed the most about collecting the evidence

was the satisfaction of when you found a piece of evidence.

The hardest part has pretty much been everything we've done

because it's quite complex, quite difficult.

Leila, I thought you did extremely well at the crime scene.

You were working as a team, and you found the blood swab.

Edwin, I thought you did a fantastic job today.

The only thing I can think of to improve on

is be a little bit more thorough at the crime scene.

That said, I think you did an excellent job.

What do snowflakes and fingerprints have in common?

The prize goes to whoever says that no two are exactly the same.

Fingerprints are crucial in crime solving,

and can make the difference between a conviction or no conviction.

They're more or less unique,

as nobody has yet found two the same,

so if you can match the fingerprints at a crime scene,

you've probably got the culprit.

There are three main types of prints.

Arches flow from one side of the finger to the other

and look a bit like...an arch.

The whorl is a circular or spiral pattern.

A bit like a tiny whirlpool.

Loops are prints that re-curve back on themselves to form a loop shape.

Some other features the rookies are looking for are the core.

This is the approximate centre of the fingerprint pattern.

A delta is where the pattern divides.

Now our rookies know this, there's no hiding place for the culprit.

Our rookie forensic scientists are about to analyse the evidence

they've gathered at the reconstructed crime scene.

In a case like this the police would take samples

from different suspects for comparison with the samples

collected at the scene.

The rookies have brought the evidence they've collected,

along with other samples

to Strathclyde University's Applied Chemistry Department,

where Greg, the fingerprint expert, is going to help them.

Oh, there we go. There's a nice fingerprint.

The rookies must first select the best fingerprint from the ones

they recovered at the crime scene.

-That looks like a whorl.

-Yeah.

-Looks like a whorl.

-Cos it's got the bits, there.

-Circular bit.

It's difficult to tell which finger their recovered print is from,

so the rookies need to check it against all the fingers and thumbs

of all three suspects.

So let's start with suspect one's right thumb.

So what's wrong with this one?

-The delta.

-The delta's there.

-Right little finger?

-No.

-So let's have a look at their left hand.

It looks really similar.

-So this would be one of interest.

-Yeah.

The rookies think they may already have a potential match.

They need to come back and take a closer look at suspect one.

Suspect two. Is this the same as that fingerprint?

-Kind of could be.

-Could this be one of interest that we should look at

-in more detail?

-Yeah, definitely.

I think we should look at that in more detail, yeah.

This is left little finger.

It could be. It's something.

-So is it something we should look at further?

-Yeah.

OK, so let's write it down.

On initial investigation,

two of suspect two's fingers are potential matches.

Suspect number three.

They don't... They don't look similar.

Why don't they look similar?

-The delta's in a different place.

-It's thinner.

-Yeah, that's right.

The delta's in a different place. So let's go to their left hand.

-Oh.

-Definitely not.

-Definitely not.

No.

So do you think suspect three's fingers could have made

-the marks you've recovered?

-No.

-No.

With suspect three eliminated,

it's time to focus on the prints of interest.

So we've got suspect two, left middle and left little.

So let's have a look. How about we count the number of lines

from the core to the delta on the one we've recovered from the scene?

-Seven.

-Seven lines. And how many on the left middle?

-Five.

-If these are different,

it means that the same finger can't have made it, cos it should be

the same number between the core and the delta.

So is it the left middle finger?

-No.

-No.

-Let's have a look at the left little finger.

-Five. Yeah? So is that the same as this one?

-No.

-No.

-Do you think suspect two made the fingerprint mark, then?

-No.

-No.

Suspect two is now eliminated.

So this is suspect one's right middle.

Three, four, five, six.

Is that the same?

-BOTH: Yes.

-Yeah.

So do you think it could be...?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Definitely.

So the first piece of evidence potentially points to suspect one.

Time to test the footprint mark against the three pairs

of suspects' shoes.

We're going to have to take this kit,

put it on the floor, and one of you is going to have to

take off your shoe.

Again, the rookies need to be methodical...

There we go.

..and test both shoes of all three suspects.

Because the shoes fit Alex perfectly, I think it could be...

There's no way that I did that crime, OK?

That's something a criminal would say.

Time to compare the footprints.

So this is suspect three's. What can you tell me about them?

-They're the same.

-I think that suspect three could be in trouble.

-Yeah.

-Uncanny.

Look at the bottom of the shoe. It's got...

-ALEX:

-It's got scratches across it.

But those scratches can't be seen in the muddy footprint

recovered at the scene.

So possibly suspect three, we're saying.

On to suspect two.

Do these footwear marks match this one?

-No.

-So why don't they match?

Because they're different patterns.

Those ones are more, kind of, squares,

and they're a bit bigger.

And those have a wider, kind of, toe fit.

We can say it's not suspect two then, yeah?

And suspect one,

whose shoes are almost identical to suspect three?

I think that this one looks more

like suspect one because of the slash marks.

Like, there should be a... If it's that one,

there should be a slash mark there...

-OK.

-..which there isn't.

Suspect one, suspect three.

Do you know which shoes made the mark, or can you not tell me?

-Can't tell yet.

-That's a good observation to make.

You can't tell just based on this alone.

The footwear marks have proved inconclusive,

but the rookies have narrowed it down to either suspect one or three.

DNA is contained in human body cells,

and under extreme magnification, it looks like this.

Each person's DNA is unique, and it's often used in forensics

to link criminals to crime scenes.

Time to move on to the DNA evidence that can be extracted from the blood

found at the crime scene.

And Nicola, an expert in forensic genetics, is on hand.

You've got your blood stain.

I've also got three swabs from the suspects,

from the inside of their cheek.

And we're going to use these to extract DNA from.

But before the rookies can compare the blood evidence

against the three swabs,

they all have to be processed so that the DNA can be extracted.

Just now, your DNA is stuck on the swab.

So what we want to do is we want to shake it out into this liquid.

And it will shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.

-ALEX:

-Ooh. How does that feel, Edwin?

It's bumpy.

So you can see now that your blood is now...

It's all in the liquid and it's not on your swab.

-ALEX:

-Feel like a scientist now, Leila?

Yeah. It's really cool.

Now, the rookies can wash the actual DNA evidence

out of the blood samples using a centrifuge.

You put your blood stain in this bit.

We pushed it through this little white membrane in the centre,

so hopefully now your DNA should be stuck in this little white stripe,

and everything else is now down here in the red at the bottom.

-ALEX:

-I feel like we're just that little step closer

to catching this criminal, don't you?

Everyone has their own unique DNA signature,

and only one in one billion people share similar DNA.

If the rookies followed procedure correctly at the crime scene,

and didn't contaminate the blood evidence,

they'll have irrefutable proof of who committed the robbery.

The DNA in our blood stain has an X and a Y,

so that tells us that the person who left that blood stain is male.

Suspect two proved negative for

both fingerprints and footprint marks.

Hardly surprising, really, because the DNA has proved

that the criminal is male.

The rookies jump straight to the

DNA results for their prime suspect.

-ALEX:

-Edwin, why don't you read out

the numbers and you can check them off?

-X and Y.

-Yeah.

-Six, seven.

-Yeah.

If the DNA found at the scene matches suspect one,

he's going to have a lot of explaining to do.

-14, 15.

-Yep.

-22, 23.

-Yes.

-It's a full set!

So hang on. So that means that suspect number one,

they were wearing similar shoes

to the print that we found on the scene,

their fingerprints looked very similar,

and the DNA is absolutely a perfect match.

Hey, rookies, high fives!

We've done top-quality forensics and we've found suspect number one

was at the scene. They're going down!

I would have gotten away with it, too,

if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

HE MOANS

It was really fun transferring

liquid to another liquid and eventually finding out

the results of all the DNA.

It was very exciting when we worked out the DNA sequence was the same.

Every activity we've done has boosted my confidence

and it's also just been really good fun.

Leila, you got on very well with the fingerprints.

Picked it up very, very quickly.

Edwin, I was most impressed by your attention to detail.

You picked out little differences very, very quickly

in the fingerprints and the footwear.

Leila, I think you did a great job in the lab today,

so my main comment would just be for you to get some more practice.

Edwin, you asked some great questions in the lab today

and did a great job.

Our rookies have had a fantastic forensic experience

visiting crime scenes and collecting and analysing evidence

to help find the truth.

But have they got what it's takes to make it as top forensic scientists?

Edwin, I definitely think you have the potential to make it

as a forensic scientist.

And a little bit of determination and hard work,

and you'll get there eventually.

Leila, I think you have the potential to become

a forensic scientist because you were able to take good notes,

but you were also methodical.

Edwin, I think you could definitely make it as a forensic scientist

because I think you're extremely inquisitive, and I wish you

the best of luck in the future.

I think, Leila, you would make a very good forensic scientist.

You've got very good attention to detail,

you are thinking all the time about what's going on

and what the possibilities could be.

Edwin and Leila, I think you've got great potential,

just because of your great attention to detail in the lab today.

Well, rookies, have you enjoyed being forensic scientists?

-Yes.

-I really have, definitely.

-Yeah?

Cool. You looked like you were enjoying ourselves.

Edwin, do you still want to be a forensic scientist?

-Yes.

-OK. And Leila, do you still want to be a forensic scientist?

-100 gazillion per cent more.

-OK.

-100 gazillion per cent.

OK, well, that's really good news

because I've got another case for you,

because at lunchtime I ordered a tuna-fish sandwich,

but it had gone and there was only a ham sandwich left, so some...

Couldn't you just dust it for prints, or something?

They may have left some blood.

You could do a DNA sample.

Oh, come on!