Forensics: the Real CSI
BOXSET
In recent years the role of forensics teams in police investigations has become ever more important.
Sometimes the evidence to convict a perpetrator of a crime can come down to the smallest trace of DNA.
Following the forensics team of West Midlands Police, this three-part series takes an in-depth look at three separate violent crimes in the Birmingham area and considers the vital role that forensic investigators play in such cases.
The first episode opens with an emergency call recording of a man calmly explaining that he has murdered his wife. However, once he is taken into custody and interviewed by detectives he claims that he has no recollection of what happened earlier in the day and so the onus is on the forensics team to find vital evidence and put together the story of what, it is later revealed, is a double murder. After killing his wife, the man then went into the neighbouring house and murdered the woman who lived next door.
As the homicide detectives work together with their forensics colleagues, we meet fingerprint experts and lab technicians as well as the digital investigators who delve into the suspects’ online life via their mobile phones and laptops.
This is fine, sensitive documentary filmmaking that carefully, respectfully charts the grim truth – rather than the flashy fictional CSI version – of the consequences of violent crime. Following right through from initial 999 call to trial verdict, it reveals the dogged patience and dedication to seeing justice done from everyone involved.