Forensic Geoscience to aid the police and community

The development and application of forensic geoscience techniques by researchers at Keele University have directly informed ‘active’ and ‘cold case’ missing persons police investigations in the UK and beyond. Such work has improved police search training in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness, reducing the time to conduct searches from several weeks to a number of days. The research has also helped to locate victims killed in natural disasters and genocides in other parts of the world, as well as shaping archaeological excavations and in the detection of illegal waste sites and wildlife crime, including deliberate badger sett tampering.

Keele researchers have supported searches for missing persons in the UK, internationally, archaeology targets and to protect the environment. This has been achieved by monitoring controlled sites on campus/UK/international sites with collaborative colleagues, identifying burial sites, revising police search strategies for active and unsolved cases, detecting/characterising archaeological and environmental crime sites. Evidence provided has assisted criminal and civil court cases, have provided evidence to the 2018 House of Lords Forensic Science enquiry, and been published in academic journal articles and police practitioner magazines.

• Keele Academic Lead: Dr Jamie K. Pringle
• Methods used: Multi-disciplinary forensic geoscience applied search techniques
• Lead partner: Staffordshire Police
• Other partners: National Crime Agency (NCA), DSTL, Lancs. Police, West Mids. Police, Met. Police, Thames Valley Police, Humberside Police, Essex Police, International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP)