From the Flying Squad to Investigating War Crimes

Ron Turnbull

• Publisher: Pen & Sword True Crime
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526758675
• Print ISBN:
  9781526766472
• Subtopic: British History

"Looks at more recent genocide through the eyes of a British detective who spent time investigating Bosnian war crimes . . . fascinating insight." — Firetrench
For over ten years he was first detective on the scene when a murder was committed in south London. In the confusion and horror of the crime scene he identified the forensic clues that would later be needed to convict the killer in the calm and measured atmosphere of the Old Bailey; calling out the necessary experts from pathologists to ballistics specialists; protecting the scene against contamination. One slip and a case would crumble; one moment of inspiration and the Yard would have its man.
He was the natural choice when the UN were looking for an experienced detective to create a trail of evidence linking the mass graves of Bosnia to the people who ordered the worst war crimes seen in Europe since the Second World War.
From the Flying Squad to Investigating War Crimes tells of the rise of forensic evidence against the true story backdrop of a detective who has spent a career at the front line in the war against murder—the ultimate crime. It traces the development of forensic science and techniques from the days of the fingerprint to the battery of tests now available to homicide investigators. It is told in the no nonsense style of a pioneer cop who has seen the worst that human beings can do to each other.
"The extraordinary autobiography of an extraordinary man who gathered evidence against the most heinous criminals." —Books Monthly

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Introduction
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 Goodbye Grandad
• Chapter 2 The Early Days
• Chapter 3 An Embryonic Police Career
• Chapter 4 Outward Bound in Burghead on the Moray Firth
• Chapter 5 Fife Constabulary’s First PC 600
• Chapter 6 Dealing with my First Dead Body
• Chapter 7 Accused of Theft
• Chapter 8 Disillusioned of Fife
• Chapter 9 Time to Move On
• Chapter 10 Hendon it is then
• Chapter 11 Balham: A New Beginning
• Chapter 12 The Sweeney Days
• Chapter 13 Promotion: Onwards and Upwards
• Chapter 14 The ‘Maltese Mafia’
• Chapter 15 Back to Normal
• Chapter 16 Recalled to Flying Squad Duties
• Chapter 17 Blags ‘r’ Us
• Chapter 18 Life after the Flying Squad
• Chapter 19 Laboratory Liaison Officer
• Chapter 20 Beaten, Raped and Left to Die in Brixton
• Chapter 21 Teapot 1
• Chapter 22 Crime Scene Examination on Wimbledon Common
• Chapter 23 Who Dares Wins
• Chapter 24 Political Assassination in Sri Lanka
• Chapter 25 Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) Bombs a Bus in Aldwych
• Chapter 26 Bosnia Calling
• Chapter 27 The Village of Cerska in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Chapter 28 Vukovar Hospital in Croatia
• Chapter 29 The British Forensic Team: Kosovo 1999
• Chapter 30 The Village of Celina in Kosovo
• Chapter 31 The Village of Velika Kruša in Kosovo
• Chapter 32 Lapsed Security
• Chapter 33 Miscellany
• Chapter 34 Health & Safety
• Chapter 35 Political Murder in the Republic of Zambia
• Chapter 36 The BFT and I Return to Kosovo: 2000
• Chapter 37 The Start of Another Career in the United Nations
• Chapter 38 All Work and No Play
• Chapter 39 Beware of Mines
• Chapter 40 Fatal Bombing of the UN HQ Building in Baghdad
• Chapter 41 UNICEF in Sudan
• Chapter 42 Historical Enquiries Team (HET), part of the Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI)
• Chapter 43 Remembering Srebrenica
• Plates