Footprint trail and mock crime scene in city centre

A MOCK crime scene featuring an abandoned car and a trail of footprints popped up in the city centre at the weekend.

Members of the public who stopped to take a look were shown how to extract DNA from a strawberry, how to lift fingerprints and footwear marks from a crime scene and lots more.

The curious display was all to do with a Coventry University forensics demonstration showcasing some of the courses students can sign up to.

The abandoned car, surrounded by police tape, drew a lot of interest from shoppers in Broadgate and the visual demonstrations proved a big hit with young children. Students from the university demonstrated how they would go about assessing the crime scene.

Adele Heath, course leader for biological and forensic sciences, told the Telegraph: “We’ve had some of our first year students come in in their white suits. We teach them crime scene management and evidence recovery.

“This car has been dumped in the city centre this morning and the students have been processing it. They’ve been trying to get fingerprints from the car and they’ve been swabbing the inside for DNA.”

The faculty of health and life sciences at Coventry University runs a number of courses for students wanting to study forensic science.

“We really wanted to come down and give the people of Coventry an idea of what we can offer,” Adele said.

“We’ve got lots of different activities and lots of tutors that you can ask questions to about forensic science. There’s finger printing and footwear marks, getting DNA from a strawberry and a bit of chromatography you can do too.” Dr Alan Greenwood, course leader for analytical chemistry and forensic science, was on hand to demonstrate how a simple Bunsen burner test can help identify evidence in investigations and how a forensic officer would go about collecting evidence from the crime scene.