Edward Cobb. February 2003
Criminal Intelligence Analyst for the NSW Police Service
Crime trends and crime statistics are big news. Talk back radio hosts, politicians of various persuasions, and many of us in the general public all have our opinions on the rise and fall of crime rates – BUT ……..

Do you know how crime statistics are obtained? How are trends in crime discovered? What is “criminal intelligence”? How is it gathered? How is it analysed? What is this analysis used for?
Edward Cobb’s work as a Criminal Intelligence Analyst for the NSW Police Service involves the gathering of criminal intelligence, and identifying and analysing trends in crime across the state. He and his colleagues also use their skills and resources to initiate and support current investigations.
How does this specialist area fits in to the big picture of law enforcement, for
· an insight into what is behind the headlines of the on going law and order/crime debate, and
· gain valuable material for your “police procedural” crime writing.

Extract from Associate Professor Tony Masters' Speech 1st April 2001.
I teach forensic science at the University of Sydney or forensic chemistry at the University of Sydney and I'll tell you about the development of forensic chemistry, some of the research we're doing with respect to fingerprinting and how, as a practising research chemist, I get excited by the chemistry and the science that I read in particular short stories and novels. The 'X Files' as we know is, shall we say, imaginative, but there are aspects in the 'X Files' where the chemistry is spot on.
What many of my students like is this aspect -how they see crime writing. This is from 'Red Dragon': 'Crawford spotted Beverley Katts through the window of an examining room as he weaved his way between the boxes. She had a pair of child's overalls suspended from a hanger over a table covered with white paper. Working under bright lights in the draught-free room she brushed the overalls with a metal spatula carefully working with the wale and across it, with the nap and against it. A sprinkle of dirt and sand fell to the paper. With it, falling through the still air, more slowly than sand and faster than lint, came a tightly coiled hair. She cocked her head and looked at it with her bright Robin's eye.Crawford could see her lips moving. He knew what she was saying: 'Gotcha'.
That's what she always said.'
You've probably all read that, and read the more recent follow-ups of 'Red Dragon.' But it's that sort of thing, I think, that this tale of mystery/adventure -putting the clues together, the jigsaw puzzle, which I think excites the students to whom I teach forensic chemistry. And I'm just going to go through now with some forensic science highlights. And I've gone right back to 14AD. That's when Lydia killed her husband August by lacing his figs with cyanide. Then he took to drinking only natural water and eating the figs off trees.
In 1729 a fellow called Thomas de Vail was appointed magistrate for Westminster and Middlesex, and ten years later he moved his headquarters to Bow Street, and that was the beginning of the Bow Street Runners, set up when Henry Fielding took over from de Vail as Justice of the Peace in 1796 and he established the Bow Street Runners.
Not long after that in 1752 - you may have heard of the trial of Mary Blandy. And, if my memory serves me right, she was supposed to have poisoned her father with arsenic because her father took exception to a young French cavalry officer with whom she wished to elope.
Now, in her trial in 1752 the cook gave testimony that she saw Mary Blandy put a sachet of white powder into the grate in the kitchen, and the cook retrieved it. They had some experts giving toxicological testimony in that trial who said that it was arsenic -they heated it up and they sniffed it and it smelt like arsenic. Now, the concentration of arsenic required for that sort of thing is such that I'm surprised that they actually survived to give their testimony. And one suspects that poor Mary might have been unjustly found guilty there.
N.B. More in September on Fingerprinting.

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DR. PETER ELLIS Director of Forensic Medicine, Westmead Hospital on 4th December 2000, speaking to Partners in Crime, Sydney at the Hughenden Hotel
Thanks very much for the invitation. A lot of these slides are about my subject Forensic Pathology. I'm going to give you an overview of how I see the work that I do and my colleagues. The title which appears in your Newsletter really covers the range of the work I do as a forensic pathologist. I spent some time earlier this year working in Kosovo and I'll give you an idea of what a forensic pathologist really does
Some of you will recognize these famous pathologists. There are some what I would say fallacies which are very common that I see (1) not only in the actual literary forensic pathologist but the actual conditions that the crime writer sells (2) that they can give time of death accurately (3) that the mortuaries where they work are dark and dismal (4) that they can get their toxicology results overnight. Believe me that doesn't happen. The interesting thing about some of this is that some of you might be aware that the ABC is showing The Difficult Woman which was first shown on TV a couple of years ago
The Forensic Pathology was filmed in my mortuary at Westmead and Caroline Goodall who plays the French Pathologist spent four days with us, it was a lot of fun doing that, but the interesting thing was that the mortuary where I work, is in Westmead Hospital and is very large airy sort of place, it has windows, some people think mortuaries never have windows but it has windows, you can see outside and you can see trees
The film crew arrived and they were very happy, they said it was perfect but there was too much light. They cut out sheets of black paper and covered up all the windows. They wanted all the lights disconnected and installed mudled spot lots one over each mortuary table. So when you see her working in the mortuary you see her working on the body it's very dark in the background with this spot light on where she's working, very depressing depressing. And MacCallum -I'm sure you've watched him, he's got the worst mortuary. We'd never work in a place like that, all bright and airy are mortuaries now. A lot of the pictures I'm going to show you are of death and pretty graphic and I make no apologies for that because you are writers and write depictions of violent death, the minds eye doesn't necessarily appreciate how dreadful it can be
It's important to give you an idea of what's involved in becoming a forensic pathologist. They are doctors so they go through five or six years at medical school and they do two or three years of forensic training. They then do five year period where they are trainee specialists which is called a Registrar of Pathology. They'll do a number of exams in that time which will culminate in a specialist qualification depending on the country you work in. So you are looking at something like 12+ years to become a specialist
In Sydney there are two forensic mortuaries the Institute of Forensic in Glebe and we are based at Westmead Hospital. We look after the whole of Western Sydney which goes up to the Blue Mountains almost up to Singleton towards Bowral so it's a very large area with about one and a half million people. Westmead is about the fourth largest forensic mortuary in Australia. I'd like to summarise the role of the forensic pathologist into three scenarios (1) before the crime scene (2) at the crime scene. Before the crime scene the forensic pathologist would look for the grave sites, where they have been hidden
More often than not they are found by bushwalkers. We do assist the police in identifying grave sites, we may help to locate and identify body parts and if they are human
Dr. Ellis also showed us slides of his tour of Kosovo and told how the forensic pathologist retrieved the bodies and did post mortem examinations to detail the extent of injuries to provide evidence to the War Crimes Tribunal. I was involved on two occasions early 2000 for a total of six weeks as part of a team set up by the British Government
There was more of course but that will give you an idea of his fascinating talk