July 9, 2024 • 29 mins
"Ive never had a bad experience in Ireland" is a fact I hold true as I talk with Eoin Dempsey, of Garda Síochána fire investigation specialist.
Join us for an enthralling episode of CSI on Fire as we sit down with Eoin Dempsey, a seasoned sergeant from Garda Síochána, who has dedicated his life to unraveling mysteries, from homicides to intricate fire investigations.
In our discussion, Eoin opens up about his active role in the Fire Investigation Association of Ireland (FIAI), a unique cross-border organization that unites fire services, forensic scientists, and police from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Having joined the FIAI in 2009 and becoming a key committee member in 2019, Eoin shares his insights on the collaborative nature of the association and its annual training conferences, which serve as melting pots of knowledge and innovation.
We delve into some of Eoins most memorable cases, especially those involving fatalities and complex murder investigations, showcasing the profound impact of thorough communication and meticulous evidence gathering.
Through captivating anecdotes, we explore the rigorous training and education process for Irish police officers, shedding light on how continuous learning and experienced mentors have been pivotal to his success.
We wrap up with an invitation to engage with the Fire Investigation Association of Ireland and join their upcoming events and webinars, which promise valuable insights and networking opportunities.
Tune in for a riveting episode packed with expert knowledge, personal stories, and a warm invitation to be part of our investigative community.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and episode after episode, we'll
attempt to excavate the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Okay, so welcome to CSRN FireFire Investigation Podcast.
(00:28):
This is episode 23, and I'vegot Owen Dempsey on.
Owen, welcome to the podcast,thanks for coming on, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks very much, Mike.
Thanks for inviting me.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Lovely Thanks.
I really appreciate you comingon, as I do with all my guests.
Now.
As listeners probably alreadypicked up, you're a good Irish
lad, so just tell us, as I dofor every guest, tell us about
your background, who you are,where you come from, why you've
ended up on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I suppose I am a sergeant in the police service
which is called AngarthaSiocana for the public of
Ireland.
I joined Angartha Shaikhana in2005.
So when there's no direct entryinto crime scene investigation
or fire investigation inAngharad Shaikhana.
So I started off for 10 years Iwas a regular uniform I think
(01:16):
you call it response officer, soit's response officer here
dealing with all types of callouts and calls for service from
the police.
In that then as a progress, Iwas involved in like all your
regular policing and moved on toas part of murder investigation
teams would have ran criminalinvestigations and trials and
(01:37):
all avenues of crime, frommurders, homicides, sexual
assaults, rapes to burglaries,right down to your public order
and then just some communitypolicing as well.
The vast experience from itserved most of my time in county
kildare, which is just outsidedublin.
It's a border county of capitalcity.
Here I've given evidence, Isuppose, in that role from the
(01:58):
local district court.
It's the smallest court here,right up to the central criminal
court which is our highestcourt in ireland.
I suppose then by about 10years of that in 2015.
Then again, good experience fromthe regular police and a little
bit of time in crimeinvestigation units as well, and
I was able to apply for aposition in our divisional crime
scene investigation unit inkildare.
(02:19):
So that's what that entailed.
I had a competency-basedinterview for that.
I was was successful in thatinterview.
There was one position in theunit at that time and I went and
I did a basic crime scene, morecourses from that photography
courses, fingerprinting courses,etc.
And the main course I kind oftook great interest in, took
(02:52):
great personal interest in.
In 2017, I did AngarthaShekana's fire and arson
investigation course, again inthe Technical Bureau Fantastic.
Yeah, that kind of led me intomy fire investigation interest
as well.
There was a great instructor onit, shane Curran, and a part of
the technical bureau he's stillthere.
He was a very interesting guy,a lot of interesting cases, and
I just thought, yeah, fireinvestigation is one avenue.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It was very interesting, Sure fantastic and
you mentioned there about theGardaíso corner sort of training
aspect.
How does it work in Ireland?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Do you have like a national college or how does
that work?
Yeah, we've a national collegein temple morton temporary,
which is the center of thecountry, really so central for
everyone.
So we did a two-year degreeprogram there.
So you come out with a.
After completion of thatsuccessful commission, you come
out with a bachelor of arts inpolicing studies.
Every guard does that and it'sthe only national center.
So, like in the uk, I think,you can do degree programs for
(03:46):
entry to different universitieset cetera, but this is the only
one.
Yeah, that was good fun.
So you do six months At thattime.
It's changed now so you woulddo six months college-based
theoretical studies and then youwould do a six-month placement,
a student guard.
So you have no policing powersthere, you're just there in an
observational capacity.
So you have no policing powersthere, you're just there in an
observational capacity.
That was great.
I did that in Dublin in a citycentre station, which is a great
(04:07):
experience and very interesting.
So I kind of from there I gotmy interest in crime
investigation, my tutor guard.
So everyone gets assigned atutor guard when you go on your
placement.
He was very interesting.
He's a detective guard now in avery, quite busy station like a
crime-ridden station.
He really had interest inwritten stage so he really had
interesting crimes.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
That he instilled that into me and I think your
tutor guard when you're astudent you don't realize it at
the time but they really dodemold you, yeah, definitely
yeah yeah, I remember my crimescene manager tutor when I
became a csi and had a massiveimpact upon me and I think
that's why they select certainindividuals, get constantly
selected for that kind of role,because you can either do it or
you don't, and I think you'vegot to be the right sort of
(04:45):
person.
But tips and tricks, it's kindof learning off the old hands,
trying to install good practiceinto you.
I should say as well thatyou're a part we're just
chatting offline before we startrecording, but you're a pioneer
.
You're the first serving csi fithat we've had on, so we're
sort of laughing and jokingabout that, but you came on.
Let's get into a bit morespecifics in terms of the fi.
(05:06):
What kind of courses does thegarda shakona undertake?
Are you?
Is it interlinked with theforensic science service there?
Do you have a forensic scienceservice?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
yes, they're combined up until actually currently now
this year the garda shakonatechnical bureau, which that
would be the crime scenemanagers.
We've kind of two-tier crimescene investigation system in
ireland, so the technical bureauwill be tier one, dealing
mainly with murders etcnationally across the country,
and then the crime sceneinvestigation units are more
(05:36):
local units, smaller units.
There could be 20 of themacross the country, so in
different areas policing areaswould have their own crime scene
investigation units.
The Technical Bureau andForensic Science Ireland,
forensic Science Ireland areforensic science providers.
They were based in the onebuilding in our police
headquarters in Dublin sothey've just recently moved to a
new headquarters on their own.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, I see that.
Yeah, fantastic new building Isee.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's a beautiful.
Actually I'm currently nowpromoted two years ago as a
sergeant.
I'm back at regular policing,but it's in Selbridge.
They have responsibility foroverseeing their security at
times as well, so it's a nicelittle link as well.
They've moved out to an areawhere I'm policing at the moment
, but it's a beautiful building.
It's a very modern, securebuilding.
I've had a few tours of it.
Our training is primarily donewhen you start off you do your
(06:21):
currency investigation trainingand it was the technical bureau
and forensic science.
Ireland would have input intothat, both of different
instructors and forensicscientists, and then our
detective guards in thetechnical bureau would all be
experts in their field.
So they would all do theirtraining, their degrees and
their masters in whatever fieldit would be ballistics or
fingerprints or photography ormapping etc.
(06:43):
They would then go on fromthere and they would be experts
who do five years experiencebefore you'd be allowed to
analyze ballistic matches etclike that.
So after your qualification youhave to have five years
experience before you're allowedto give evidence of that and
they would do that.
And then forensic science thenwould.
They would have experts inchemistry, dna and impressions,
(07:03):
impressions etc and fingerprintsas well.
Now they both had an input.
And then the technical bureauthe ballistics section in the
technical bureau from GarethShekana would be the main fire
scene investigators.
They deal with all ballistics,like firearm analysis and major
fire scene investigation, sothey would maybe lead hand on
the FI, the fire and arsoncourse.
Again, shane Curran ran thatout and Shane Barry Very
(07:27):
interesting people with vastexperience in fire scene
investigation.
And from there then I also youcan apply to do the IFE
Institute of Fire EngineersLevel 5 training in Morton Mark.
I applied for that in 2018, Ithink I done that and I got
funding through the guards forthat, so all the technical
bureau would have done that.
I applied for that in 2018.
I think I've done that, and Igot funding through the guards
for that, so all the technicalbureau would have done that
(07:48):
training as well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So it was a highly enjoyable course actually, yeah,
so yeah, so that's more done onthe marsh fire service college.
Did your level five there?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
yeah, I did.
Yeah, jess and dean and noddyand the guys that give me great
instruction, I really enjoyedthat course again.
Yeah, that was very practical,very hands-on, that it really
lit the flame for fireinvestigation really for me as
well.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
There's plenty of puns in this podcast, so don't
worry, I'm always coming outwith them.
What I was going to say was howdoes it work in terms of in the
UK?
If it's a criminal matter, thenobviously the police have the
priority.
If it's accidental, thenobviously the fire service sort
of take the lead in terms of thecoroner's court.
Does it work a similar way inIreland?
Sort of, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
We're in a bit of a funny situation in Ireland at
the moment that while somemembers of the fire service may
go about like do their own fireinvestigation training, they
don't actually provide a rolefor fire investigation training.
So in Garcha Connacht for fatalfires, whether it be accidental
or suspicious fire, the policeservice in Garth Shekana would
(08:48):
always prepare the inquest filefor a coroner.
So they would do all theinvestigation.
They would have done a lot ofaccidental or undetermined fatal
fire.
The coroner would hold aninquest and they'd determine the
cause of death etc.
And we would provide theinformation and the evidence for
them for determination.
So it's a bit of a funny one,the fire service there.
(09:08):
There's a lot of work going on.
Suppose the fire investigationassociation of ireland as well.
We're trying to bridge that gapas well, because it will be
great to have a tiered approachlike the uk that the fire
service would investigate allfires and the police and the
fire service would join theircapabilities for malicious fires
or suspected arson et cetera.
It's a bit of a fall down timebut we're getting there.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, sure, I mean I think in the UK you're looking
at ISO accreditation now.
So I think fire service isprobably starting to move,
perhaps because they have nolegal requirement to actually
investigate fires.
So I think with the ISOo comingin accreditation wise, you know
, I think maybe some fireservices, because of the cost of
getting accredited, might startmoving away from that.
Are you subject obviously notsubject to the uk for science
(09:53):
regulator, but are you subjectto similar kind of constraints?
I wouldn't say constraints, butare you subject to similar kind
of accreditations or?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
yeah, so the, the technical bureau, all the labs
are all ISO accredited.
As crime scene investigators wedon't have to have the ISO
accreditation, no, with all ourlabs etc.
It's a good system.
Sometimes there might be alittle bit more required of
times coming forward, but weneed to work together a bit more
as a team in the fire serviceand the guards as well.
There's a lot of good thoughtson both sides as well.
(10:25):
Like you know, we do work verywell together definitely.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Oh yeah, I think you know this multi.
We have a sort of trifectaapproach, if you like.
We have police service, fireservice and then sometimes a
forensic scientist or firescientist as well.
That works incredibly well.
It's obviously resource quiteheavy because you've got three
fis in effect there andsometimes assistance as well.
So that seems to work very well.
And that kind of moves me on toyour next area I want to talk
(10:50):
about was the Fire Associationof Ireland, and I know you're a
member of that and you're veryactively involved.
So give us a little bit ofdetails around that, would you?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, so it was in 2009.
I joined the Fire InvestigationAssociation of Ireland.
It's a chapter of the IWAI.
We are a cross-border chapteras well, so I think at the time
we were the first cross-borderchapter in the IWAI but I think
now the Central European, etcetera, has joined us from that.
Yeah, so we're joined withNorthern Ireland in the UK.
(11:19):
We have members from AngaerthiCon in my organization, the fire
service here in Ireland,forensic science in Ireland and
Northern Ireland fire service inNorthern Ireland and the police
service in Northern Ireland.
So we're quite lucky in thatsense.
And whereas Northern IrelandFire and Rescue Service would
have a similar approach to fireinvestigation as EAD and the
(11:40):
police there as well.
It's different but it's good.
It's great to get the differentoutlooks and the different
approaches to things as well andto talk them through.
Yeah, we have a committee thereand it's made up as well.
Our committee is kind of madeup multifunctional, similar to
the uk, afi, police service,forensic scientists, fire
service, the chief fire officersand some retired chief fire
officers as well.
(12:00):
So, yeah, I was delighted Ijoined.
I didn't know much about itbefore I joined, to be honest
with you, but in 2019, paul Rockinvited me to join the
committee and it was brilliant.
I really got to meet all thedifferent services as we said
earlier, the fire service andforensic science and we got to
talk around the table and seetheir approaches.
We hold an ATC every year.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, they have a conference as well, don't you?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, we have a training conference each year.
Now this year it's normally inApril, but this year we hold it
alternately in Belfast, northernIreland, and then every second
year, and then in Dublin inIreland to share it out.
So this year we hope to hold itin Belfast.
It's changed.
Normally it's in April, but wehave October this year, october
this year, okay.
Yeah, so we have good venue andwe've got good guest speakers,
(12:47):
uh, lined up for that andworkshops, and we're still open
to some more suggestions.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
if anybody else anyone's listening and would
like to present at it, we'd bedelighted to hear any
submissions, but it promises tobe a great event sure, and I
think we were just chattingagain before we start recording,
but I've spent quite a lot oftime in ireland and I've never
had a bad experience in Ireland.
I've probably been to Irelandmaybe 30, 40 times investigating
various different fires andjust absolutely fantastic
(13:12):
experience.
I've never had a Everyone triesto feed you.
So I thoroughly recommendattending anything in Ireland.
I thoroughly recommend itbecause the hospitality is
fantastic and that's brilliant.
So anything in October.
If you've got any ideas, thenI'm sure contact the FIA.
That would be grand.
Okay, let's move on to is therea particular case or a case
(13:33):
study that you investigated,that you learned anything
particular from, or any lessonscoming out of, that
investigation?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, there's been a few.
Now, in fairness We've had afew say murder investigations.
But in terms of FIA, infairness we've had a few say
murder investigations.
But in terms of fireinvestigations I've involved a
number of fatal ones etc.
Different.
I suppose the one that reallyjuts out.
It's a very simple fire.
I went one day to a.
I was determined.
It kind of highlights thebreakdown and communication
between training of both thefire service and I was just
(14:03):
asked one morning as acounselling examiner to attend a
shed fire what they thought wasan accidental shed fire in the
back of a house and I approacheddown, hadn't much of a briefing
, got to the scene and spoke toa young family that they had a
fire in the back of their shed.
As I spoke to them people werea bit standoffish, we got
chatting, we just kind of builta rapport with kids around the
same age and built a rapportwith them and they began to tell
(14:26):
me more about it and there hadbeen a recent bad domestic
situation in the house and anex-partner had been slightly
aggressive etc.
But I bore that in mind, talkedto them, got a good bit of
information that I suppose theresponding police hadn't got at
the time because they'd beencalled in the middle of the
night and it wouldn't have beena very affable like stuff in the
(14:47):
area suffering social economicissues, but just within a report
we got a bit of informationfrom them.
I think that's probably thebiggest thing.
What I've learned from myprevious currency manager is due
to retire this year, but healways made a great focus on
speaking to the interparty andbuilding a report them and
speaking to witness as much youcan because it really can give
you some little what they mightnot think is massive information
(15:08):
towards the start of the fire.
It can really build a picturein your head and be a different
hypothesis.
It just opens their eyes alittle bit sometimes From
speaking on a small little fire.
I examined the fire directly atthe back of their house, just a
few foot from the back door ofthe house.
It was a terraced house.
It wasn't sitting right footfrom the back door of the house.
It was a terrace house.
It wasn't sitting right.
There was no ignition sources.
(15:29):
I thought no identifiableignition sources there.
There was no electricity to thebuilding, etc.
The more I spoke, I gatheredinformation.
I found the seat of the fire.
There was no ignition sourceson natural ignition source on
seats.
The fire took my samples, mydebris and again spoke to
witnesses and there had been aprevious attempted arson at the
(15:49):
front door of their house anumber of weeks previous then.
So the ex-partner disrespecteda lit of fire at the front of
the house.
Again I spoke to witnesses.
Actually someone wants somecctv.
Examined the front of the houseto good.
Sometimes people get a bit andI would be guilty of it too.
Like you know, we all arebecause you get focused on the
seat of the fire.
You get focused where's theseat of the fire and you go
straight to the fire scene.
But it just shows that if youstick by the scientific
(16:12):
principles of fire investigationand you go back and you run
through them all, start on theexternal of the front of the
house the fire that had beenresponded to was at the rear of
the house and you come back tothe front that the bins had
tried to set fire.
There was also a seat of firein the bins at the front door of
the house.
Alarm bells rang in my head andwe called a bit of a case
conference.
After I had examined the scenewe found CCTV of the ex-partner
(16:35):
cycling around on the bike.
First of all, I had examined thescenes first, and then we
called a case conference withthe detective sergeant, we
initiated an investigation teamand from there we established a
cctv showing this ex-partnerstarting the fire, throwing
something in over the back wallof a house and back into the
shed, igniting the fire.
(16:56):
And then he attempted to ignitea fire in a wheelie bin at the
front of the house, thoughluckily enough he closed the
wheelie bin over.
So it was quite a series.
There was young kids in thehouse and two or three adults
with three young juvenile infantkids the front and the back
door.
He attempted to set on fire inthe house.
So what started off as a simplefire and we've all gone to them
the fire guards had been therethat night, the responding guard
(17:17):
had been there that night andnobody had suspected there was
any intent or maliciousness tothe investigation.
So that guy the detectivesarrested, interviewed and later
charged with arson, and servingfive years in custody for arson
after being convicted in thecircuit court yeah, I'd often
tell that story to young guards,young crime scene examiners,
(17:39):
and it's like keep your eyesopen.
It just shows.
Keep your eyes open and talk topeople.
You'll get information.
Gather all the informationavailable to you before making
any determinations or anyhypotheses.
And it was a great result.
From what started off, thescene hadn't been preserved or
anything like that, so wemanaged to get enough evidence
from the scene as well.
So what started off as simpleaccidental shed fire ended up to
(17:59):
male being given five years incustody in the circuit court for
arson fantastic it could haveturned out yeah, because it
turned out a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I was just saying like sometimes some of the more
simpler things are.
Simpler cases are where youactually learn some fairly
fundamental kind of lessons, andI was mentoring some csis when
I was still in force, in sort of2019, and very often they'd say
there wasn't anything else onthat day, or we had quite a few
staff on that day and they wouldsay, oh, do you think it's
(18:27):
worth going to this?
And it was like I used torespond just to say, well, why
wouldn't you go to it?
Because I guarantee, when youget there, you're going to learn
something, you're going to takesomething away from it, and
it's not always the big casesthat you think that leave those
impressions.
Sometimes it is the smallercases, is the smaller?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
cases Exactly.
Yeah, you can't always rely onwhat's been said initially, so
something that's so small mightnot turn Once we request it.
We'll attend everything andwe'll assess it first and see
how we go on.
It's just a priority.
You have to do it.
It just shows that sometimesthings can get left under the
cracks and it's why we'readvocating for all fire service
(19:03):
to be trained at some sort oflevel of fire investigation and
all responding police as well tohave the basis of fire
investigation.
I do a few talks with newprobationary guardi and new
police officers.
This is part of it as well isto show them that gathering
information is the mostimportant thing they can do
before assessing and making adecision and speaking with
(19:25):
injured parties and witnessesand gathering as much evidence
as they can and every day canthink of it for granted.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Exactly.
I remember a job in Irelandactually and I turned up at a
fire and it was gone to fullflashover and there wasn't a
great deal left.
And I was looking at there wassome marking and bits and pieces
on the electrical distributionboard and I was sort of going
down that avenue and but Iwasn't under% so I think I was
going to go undetermined becausewater had been applied whilst
the electricity was still on andthat sort of stuff.
(19:50):
So that kind of made sense ofmarking.
I was just hanging around andhanging around packing up at the
end of the day and I could seeI just did some general
house-to-house and I thinkcertainly on the private side I
think a lot of people shy awayor certainly some of the younger
(20:11):
members shy away from thathouse to house and you'd be
surprised how many times theyhave ring doorbells or someone's
actually recorded it.
I was going to go with theundetermined on this fire until
I could see there was a littleold lady.
She was just in her garden, shewas doing some gardening and I
just struck up a conversationwith her and she sort of we came
to the conclusion that I wasthere for the fire and she said
oh, I've got a video here of twolads putting fireworks,
shooting fireworks at the garage, which basically started the
fire off.
So it completely changed myview and obviously had actual
(20:33):
physical evidence then of whathad actually started the fire.
But just that littleinteraction with someone just
who was minding their ownbusiness.
I was minding my own business,just happened to say hello, how
are you doing?
And that struck up aconversation that witnesses and
especially in this day and age,ring doorbells and people will.
There's a predominance now assoon as something happens.
I put a couple of posts on mylinkedin about an aircraft that
(20:56):
was arcing and the number ofpeople that come off that
aircraft that's been evacuatedand they're immediately on their
phones recording it.
So there's so much informationthat witnesses have now.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, the house house inquiries, like it's probably
in any major investigation theirons would take part in most
police forces.
It's one of the first thingsand first jobs that gets
assigned, because people love totalk and it's amazing and, as a
young police officer, whenyou're trying to get involved in
major investigations aroundyou're generally, as you're
starting off, you're left onthese house to house inquiries.
(21:26):
It's there you get a greatbuild up, you get a great
appreciation because you seereally how much people want to
tell you and they'll tell youwhat happened yesterday and the
day before and what's beenhappening for the last year and
they might never ring the policeand tell them this, but once
you come and knock on their, 99%of the people in the world are
very helpful and very, verydecent people.
(21:47):
Yeah exactly, yeah, exactly, andit's kind of a benefit.
Sometimes in your circlesthere's direct entry into
forensics and crime sceneinvestigation and FI In Ireland.
You kind of have to walk thebeat and walk the track first
and you get your experience inthe crime investigation.
I remember doing the crimescene investigation investigator
, the fire and arson course andgarcia connor and this one guy,
(22:09):
a quote.
I stood out because if you'reasking in court, how long have
you been investigating, whateverservice you have in the guards,
but every time you've been apiece after.
I've been investigating crimesince and you have.
And it's this build-up,curiosity and inquisition that
you've had, you've built up fromyour days is walking the beat
and speaking to the public anddoing house to house inquiries
and seeing case conferencesbefore you're ever involved in
(22:32):
crime scene investigation andfire investigation.
So you know what's required,like you know.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So we're lucky yeah, and of course in the police when
you're interviewing witnessesand stuff that all feeds into
later.
You know what questions youwant answered.
You can feed that into thatteam that's dealing with that.
Or you've done the CCTVrecovery so you know how that's
enabled, how that's achieved,etc.
Etc.
So yeah, I think generalpolicing background gives you
(22:56):
it's a bit like military andpolice.
You get involved in so muchthing.
It gives you a fantasticfoundation for anything that you
build.
You've specifically gone intothe sort of CSI area and the
fire investigation side.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
That foundation helps you immensely.
Just on the broader kind ofaspect of it yeah, it does.
Yeah, it starts from the bottomand work your way up.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, I see You're so keen that you started a degree
in fire engineering, is it?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, no, I started a degree in fire engineering in
2019, I believe, and in June2019, unfortunately.
Thankfully, we were best oftwins my kids so when I applied
for that position, I didn't knowwhat childcare was.
I had no kids at that time andthen in September I started that
and I adjourned it because Iwas actually accepted on the msc
(23:40):
and fire investigation inwolverhampton.
So in december I was juststarted, following september in
2020, so I left the fireengineering degree and then
covid kicked in after I leftthat so I couldn't travel over
and back to wolverhampton.
So that's on ice.
At the moment.
My attention is to go back tothat.
The fire engineering was quiteinteresting.
I wouldn't rule out going backto that now.
(24:01):
It was in watford it and it wasgreat it was run by chief fire
officer and two assistant chieffire officers as well were the
main inputs into it.
It was great to see I had neverbeen exposed to that side of
the fire engineering suppressionsystems and emergency lighting
and escape routes etc.
And it was great to kind of seethat and see what can be
obtained from fire suppressionunits and alarms etc for your
(24:23):
fire investigation.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, definitely.
I just had on.
The previous episode to you isRory Haddon from Edinburgh
University and he's on the fireinvestigation, fire engineering
kind of side and I think it'sreally important that us, as
fire investigators, we need toknow sometimes what should be
there, what fire barriers shouldbe there, what measures are
there.
When I was on Grenfell Tower,one of our tasks was to recover
(24:47):
the hinges to see if they werefire-rated hinges and some of
the glass that was in the doorsas well, to see if the glass was
fire-rated, et cetera, to tryand understand the fire spread.
So yeah, I think often firefire investigators I wouldn't
say ignore the fire engineeringside of it, but I think we need
to be more aware of what shouldhave been there prior to the
fire, because obviously ninetimes out of ten intermission
(25:10):
strips and bits and piecesshould they be there.
But is there a lack there?
Fire doors etc, etc.
There's a real need, I think,and I think all credit to you
for looking at a fireengineering course.
I'll tell you my story in thatI've started a PhD twice at
Portsmouth University and twiceI've stopped.
I'm actually starting anotherone this fall.
But yeah, I fully get it wherelife gets in the way, and
(25:31):
studies certainly.
In my life anyway, studies havealways come second, if that
makes sense, to familycommitments.
But yeah, no shame in that atall.
That's her time lucky, hopefullyin that way if you had a top
gadget I'm a bit of a gadget manis there anything that you've
got in your toolkit that youthink you can have you moved
towards 3d scanning and thatkind of stuff, lidar and and all
(25:51):
that good stuff no,unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You'd love to do that , but I suppose budgets of
government services aren'tallowing that at the moment.
I'd'd be quite traditional.
I wouldn't be gadget man toomuch.
Like you know my digital cameraI'm not really a gadget man, to
be honest.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
That's right.
Not everyone is.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, more traditional.
Now, when it comes to DIY anddrills and stuff like that, yeah
, I'm really gadgety.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I'm just thinking about the fire service.
Do you have an ignitable liquidcanine sort of facility?
Is that available to you overthere?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
it is in northern ireland fire and rescue service
and we can request it.
It's something that's probablylacking here in ireland as well,
like our detection dogs, andgarcia connor don't have that
capability at the moment.
If we have a mutual agreementthat we can request from
northern ireland fire and rescueservice and, as happened, all
right, chef for large scenes,etc.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Gotcha in terms of sort of.
I'm always fascinating from apractical point of view,
packaging wise.
How do you package your samplesfor ignitable liquids?
Is there any difference overthere or is it pretty much we
would do in the uk?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
generally nylon bags, as we would use.
Yeah, yeah, so nylon bags andtightness neck and all that,
yeah okay, good, good, all right, fascinating, fascinating,
believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I knew time would fly because we're having a good
time but virtually run out oftime very much, see, I like to
keep the episodes down to sortof about 40 minutes and with
editing and bits and pieces,we're gonna run out of time, but
it's been absolutely.
Is there anything else?
I always give the opportunity,the guests opportunities or
anything else that you want totalk about.
Any burning issue.
There's another pun for you.
Any burning issues.
Is there anything else thatyou'd want to talk about?
(27:20):
Any burning issue?
There's another pun for you.
Any burning issues for you,owen, that you wanted to talk
about today and maybe promotethe Fire Investigation
Association again?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, I suppose the FIAI, the Fire Investigation
Association of Ireland.
We are going through some fluxof change at the moment, but we
really would love some newmembers.
It's a great association was abit skeptical to start for
joining it.
I was a bit maybe uh nervousand didn't believe I should be
placed there, didn't?
I was good enough for it's awelcoming organization.
It's great to meet other peopleinvolved in the association.
(27:48):
Like some of the talks andpresentations we had like during
covid, we start off webinarsand they're all live on our
website recorded for members.
Like some of us, it allowed us,whereas we're confined to
screen, we're allowed to screen.
We were allowed to bring ininternational speakers.
We had John Gambau and JohnOrtlund from the USA.
We gave topics on managingcomplex fire scenes From there.
(28:08):
We had a photography workshopfor fire scenes.
David Conway from the TechnicalBureau in the Guards of Guyana
gave us and we had some JeffPauley gave a presentation on
the post fire scene healthhazards.
They're all available on ourwebsite, fireinvestigationie as
recorded.
Webinars for members.
This year promises to be anexcellent lineup of speakers in
(28:31):
october in belfast.
We will publicize that on ourlinkedin page and our website,
so keep an eye out for that anddrop us a line.
Don't be afraid, we're alwayswelcoming new members and new
speakers and committee members.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
We're always there, yeah and, as I can attest to, if
you do turn up, you'll have afantastic time.
It's such a welcoming countryas a whole.
I've never had a bad experiencein Ireland and I've had some
bad experiences everywhere else,but never one in Ireland.
So thanks ever so much, owen,for coming on.
(29:04):
I really appreciate your time.
I know you're a busy individualand, unlike the rest of us,
you've got a shift pattern toadhere to, etc.
Etc.
So thanks again for coming.
I really appreciate it, noproblem.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Thank you again, mike , and thanks for inviting me,
and it's a great podcast and Ilook forward to hearing all the
rest of the episodes.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Thanks very much, cheers hey, thank you for
listening to csi on fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our web page.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
Hi, welcome to CSI on Fire, the podcast that takes
you behind the scenes of thefire investigation community.
I'm your host, mike Moulden,and episode after episode, we'll
attempt to excavate the oftendifficult but always fascinating
world of the fire investigator.
Okay, so welcome to CSRN FireFire Investigation Podcast.
(00:28):
This is episode 23, and I'vegot Owen Dempsey on.
Owen, welcome to the podcast,thanks for coming on, mate.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks very much, Mike.
Thanks for inviting me.
It's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Lovely Thanks.
I really appreciate you comingon, as I do with all my guests.
Now.
As listeners probably alreadypicked up, you're a good Irish
lad, so just tell us, as I dofor every guest, tell us about
your background, who you are,where you come from, why you've
ended up on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Yeah, I suppose I am a sergeant in the police service
which is called AngarthaSiocana for the public of
Ireland.
I joined Angartha Shaikhana in2005.
So when there's no direct entryinto crime scene investigation
or fire investigation inAngharad Shaikhana.
So I started off for 10 years Iwas a regular uniform I think
(01:16):
you call it response officer, soit's response officer here
dealing with all types of callouts and calls for service from
the police.
In that then as a progress, Iwas involved in like all your
regular policing and moved on toas part of murder investigation
teams would have ran criminalinvestigations and trials and
(01:37):
all avenues of crime, frommurders, homicides, sexual
assaults, rapes to burglaries,right down to your public order
and then just some communitypolicing as well.
The vast experience from itserved most of my time in county
kildare, which is just outsidedublin.
It's a border county of capitalcity.
Here I've given evidence, Isuppose, in that role from the
(01:58):
local district court.
It's the smallest court here,right up to the central criminal
court which is our highestcourt in ireland.
I suppose then by about 10years of that in 2015.
Then again, good experience fromthe regular police and a little
bit of time in crimeinvestigation units as well, and
I was able to apply for aposition in our divisional crime
scene investigation unit inkildare.
(02:19):
So that's what that entailed.
I had a competency-basedinterview for that.
I was was successful in thatinterview.
There was one position in theunit at that time and I went and
I did a basic crime scene, morecourses from that photography
courses, fingerprinting courses,etc.
And the main course I kind oftook great interest in, took
(02:52):
great personal interest in.
In 2017, I did AngarthaShekana's fire and arson
investigation course, again inthe Technical Bureau Fantastic.
Yeah, that kind of led me intomy fire investigation interest
as well.
There was a great instructor onit, shane Curran, and a part of
the technical bureau he's stillthere.
He was a very interesting guy,a lot of interesting cases, and
I just thought, yeah, fireinvestigation is one avenue.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It was very interesting, Sure fantastic and
you mentioned there about theGardaíso corner sort of training
aspect.
How does it work in Ireland?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Do you have like a national college or how does
that work?
Yeah, we've a national collegein temple morton temporary,
which is the center of thecountry, really so central for
everyone.
So we did a two-year degreeprogram there.
So you come out with a.
After completion of thatsuccessful commission, you come
out with a bachelor of arts inpolicing studies.
Every guard does that and it'sthe only national center.
So, like in the uk, I think,you can do degree programs for
(03:46):
entry to different universitieset cetera, but this is the only
one.
Yeah, that was good fun.
So you do six months At thattime.
It's changed now so you woulddo six months college-based
theoretical studies and then youwould do a six-month placement,
a student guard.
So you have no policing powersthere, you're just there in an
observational capacity.
So you have no policing powersthere, you're just there in an
observational capacity.
That was great.
I did that in Dublin in a citycentre station, which is a great
(04:07):
experience and very interesting.
So I kind of from there I gotmy interest in crime
investigation, my tutor guard.
So everyone gets assigned atutor guard when you go on your
placement.
He was very interesting.
He's a detective guard now in avery, quite busy station like a
crime-ridden station.
He really had interest inwritten stage so he really had
interesting crimes.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
That he instilled that into me and I think your
tutor guard when you're astudent you don't realize it at
the time but they really dodemold you, yeah, definitely
yeah yeah, I remember my crimescene manager tutor when I
became a csi and had a massiveimpact upon me and I think
that's why they select certainindividuals, get constantly
selected for that kind of role,because you can either do it or
you don't, and I think you'vegot to be the right sort of
(04:45):
person.
But tips and tricks, it's kindof learning off the old hands,
trying to install good practiceinto you.
I should say as well thatyou're a part we're just
chatting offline before we startrecording, but you're a pioneer
.
You're the first serving csi fithat we've had on, so we're
sort of laughing and jokingabout that, but you came on.
Let's get into a bit morespecifics in terms of the fi.
(05:06):
What kind of courses does thegarda shakona undertake?
Are you?
Is it interlinked with theforensic science service there?
Do you have a forensic scienceservice?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
yes, they're combined up until actually currently now
this year the garda shakonatechnical bureau, which that
would be the crime scenemanagers.
We've kind of two-tier crimescene investigation system in
ireland, so the technical bureauwill be tier one, dealing
mainly with murders etcnationally across the country,
and then the crime sceneinvestigation units are more
(05:36):
local units, smaller units.
There could be 20 of themacross the country, so in
different areas policing areaswould have their own crime scene
investigation units.
The Technical Bureau andForensic Science Ireland,
forensic Science Ireland areforensic science providers.
They were based in the onebuilding in our police
headquarters in Dublin sothey've just recently moved to a
new headquarters on their own.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, I see that.
Yeah, fantastic new building Isee.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It's a beautiful.
Actually I'm currently nowpromoted two years ago as a
sergeant.
I'm back at regular policing,but it's in Selbridge.
They have responsibility foroverseeing their security at
times as well, so it's a nicelittle link as well.
They've moved out to an areawhere I'm policing at the moment
, but it's a beautiful building.
It's a very modern, securebuilding.
I've had a few tours of it.
Our training is primarily donewhen you start off you do your
(06:21):
currency investigation trainingand it was the technical bureau
and forensic science.
Ireland would have input intothat, both of different
instructors and forensicscientists, and then our
detective guards in thetechnical bureau would all be
experts in their field.
So they would all do theirtraining, their degrees and
their masters in whatever fieldit would be ballistics or
fingerprints or photography ormapping etc.
(06:43):
They would then go on fromthere and they would be experts
who do five years experiencebefore you'd be allowed to
analyze ballistic matches etclike that.
So after your qualification youhave to have five years
experience before you're allowedto give evidence of that and
they would do that.
And then forensic science thenwould.
They would have experts inchemistry, dna and impressions,
(07:03):
impressions etc and fingerprintsas well.
Now they both had an input.
And then the technical bureauthe ballistics section in the
technical bureau from GarethShekana would be the main fire
scene investigators.
They deal with all ballistics,like firearm analysis and major
fire scene investigation, sothey would maybe lead hand on
the FI, the fire and arsoncourse.
Again, shane Curran ran thatout and Shane Barry Very
(07:27):
interesting people with vastexperience in fire scene
investigation.
And from there then I also youcan apply to do the IFE
Institute of Fire EngineersLevel 5 training in Morton Mark.
I applied for that in 2018, Ithink I done that and I got
funding through the guards forthat, so all the technical
bureau would have done that.
I applied for that in 2018.
I think I've done that, and Igot funding through the guards
for that, so all the technicalbureau would have done that
(07:48):
training as well.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So it was a highly enjoyable course actually, yeah,
so yeah, so that's more done onthe marsh fire service college.
Did your level five there?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
yeah, I did.
Yeah, jess and dean and noddyand the guys that give me great
instruction, I really enjoyedthat course again.
Yeah, that was very practical,very hands-on, that it really
lit the flame for fireinvestigation really for me as
well.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
There's plenty of puns in this podcast, so don't
worry, I'm always coming outwith them.
What I was going to say was howdoes it work in terms of in the
UK?
If it's a criminal matter, thenobviously the police have the
priority.
If it's accidental, thenobviously the fire service sort
of take the lead in terms of thecoroner's court.
Does it work a similar way inIreland?
Sort of, yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
We're in a bit of a funny situation in Ireland at
the moment that while somemembers of the fire service may
go about like do their own fireinvestigation training, they
don't actually provide a rolefor fire investigation training.
So in Garcha Connacht for fatalfires, whether it be accidental
or suspicious fire, the policeservice in Garth Shekana would
(08:48):
always prepare the inquest filefor a coroner.
So they would do all theinvestigation.
They would have done a lot ofaccidental or undetermined fatal
fire.
The coroner would hold aninquest and they'd determine the
cause of death etc.
And we would provide theinformation and the evidence for
them for determination.
So it's a bit of a funny one,the fire service there.
(09:08):
There's a lot of work going on.
Suppose the fire investigationassociation of ireland as well.
We're trying to bridge that gapas well, because it will be
great to have a tiered approachlike the uk that the fire
service would investigate allfires and the police and the
fire service would join theircapabilities for malicious fires
or suspected arson et cetera.
It's a bit of a fall down timebut we're getting there.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, sure, I mean I think in the UK you're looking
at ISO accreditation now.
So I think fire service isprobably starting to move,
perhaps because they have nolegal requirement to actually
investigate fires.
So I think with the ISOo comingin accreditation wise, you know
, I think maybe some fireservices, because of the cost of
getting accredited, might startmoving away from that.
Are you subject obviously notsubject to the uk for science
(09:53):
regulator, but are you subjectto similar kind of constraints?
I wouldn't say constraints, butare you subject to similar kind
of accreditations or?
Speaker 2 (10:02):
yeah, so the, the technical bureau, all the labs
are all ISO accredited.
As crime scene investigators wedon't have to have the ISO
accreditation, no, with all ourlabs etc.
It's a good system.
Sometimes there might be alittle bit more required of
times coming forward, but weneed to work together a bit more
as a team in the fire serviceand the guards as well.
There's a lot of good thoughtson both sides as well.
(10:25):
Like you know, we do work verywell together definitely.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Oh yeah, I think you know this multi.
We have a sort of trifectaapproach, if you like.
We have police service, fireservice and then sometimes a
forensic scientist or firescientist as well.
That works incredibly well.
It's obviously resource quiteheavy because you've got three
fis in effect there andsometimes assistance as well.
So that seems to work very well.
And that kind of moves me on toyour next area I want to talk
(10:50):
about was the Fire Associationof Ireland, and I know you're a
member of that and you're veryactively involved.
So give us a little bit ofdetails around that, would you?
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Yeah, so it was in 2009.
I joined the Fire InvestigationAssociation of Ireland.
It's a chapter of the IWAI.
We are a cross-border chapteras well, so I think at the time
we were the first cross-borderchapter in the IWAI but I think
now the Central European, etcetera, has joined us from that.
Yeah, so we're joined withNorthern Ireland in the UK.
(11:19):
We have members from AngaerthiCon in my organization, the fire
service here in Ireland,forensic science in Ireland and
Northern Ireland fire service inNorthern Ireland and the police
service in Northern Ireland.
So we're quite lucky in thatsense.
And whereas Northern IrelandFire and Rescue Service would
have a similar approach to fireinvestigation as EAD and the
(11:40):
police there as well.
It's different but it's good.
It's great to get the differentoutlooks and the different
approaches to things as well andto talk them through.
Yeah, we have a committee thereand it's made up as well.
Our committee is kind of madeup multifunctional, similar to
the uk, afi, police service,forensic scientists, fire
service, the chief fire officersand some retired chief fire
officers as well.
(12:00):
So, yeah, I was delighted Ijoined.
I didn't know much about itbefore I joined, to be honest
with you, but in 2019, paul Rockinvited me to join the
committee and it was brilliant.
I really got to meet all thedifferent services as we said
earlier, the fire service andforensic science and we got to
talk around the table and seetheir approaches.
We hold an ATC every year.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, they have a conference as well, don't you?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah, we have a training conference each year.
Now this year it's normally inApril, but this year we hold it
alternately in Belfast, northernIreland, and then every second
year, and then in Dublin inIreland to share it out.
So this year we hope to hold itin Belfast.
It's changed.
Normally it's in April, but wehave October this year, october
this year, okay.
Yeah, so we have good venue andwe've got good guest speakers,
(12:47):
uh, lined up for that andworkshops, and we're still open
to some more suggestions.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
if anybody else anyone's listening and would
like to present at it, we'd bedelighted to hear any
submissions, but it promises tobe a great event sure, and I
think we were just chattingagain before we start recording,
but I've spent quite a lot oftime in ireland and I've never
had a bad experience in Ireland.
I've probably been to Irelandmaybe 30, 40 times investigating
various different fires andjust absolutely fantastic
(13:12):
experience.
I've never had a Everyone triesto feed you.
So I thoroughly recommendattending anything in Ireland.
I thoroughly recommend itbecause the hospitality is
fantastic and that's brilliant.
So anything in October.
If you've got any ideas, thenI'm sure contact the FIA.
That would be grand.
Okay, let's move on to is therea particular case or a case
(13:33):
study that you investigated,that you learned anything
particular from, or any lessonscoming out of, that
investigation?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, there's been a few.
Now, in fairness We've had afew say murder investigations.
But in terms of FIA, infairness we've had a few say
murder investigations.
But in terms of fireinvestigations I've involved a
number of fatal ones etc.
Different.
I suppose the one that reallyjuts out.
It's a very simple fire.
I went one day to a.
I was determined.
It kind of highlights thebreakdown and communication
between training of both thefire service and I was just
(14:03):
asked one morning as acounselling examiner to attend a
shed fire what they thought wasan accidental shed fire in the
back of a house and I approacheddown, hadn't much of a briefing
, got to the scene and spoke toa young family that they had a
fire in the back of their shed.
As I spoke to them people werea bit standoffish, we got
chatting, we just kind of builta rapport with kids around the
same age and built a rapportwith them and they began to tell
(14:26):
me more about it and there hadbeen a recent bad domestic
situation in the house and anex-partner had been slightly
aggressive etc.
But I bore that in mind, talkedto them, got a good bit of
information that I suppose theresponding police hadn't got at
the time because they'd beencalled in the middle of the
night and it wouldn't have beena very affable like stuff in the
(14:47):
area suffering social economicissues, but just within a report
we got a bit of informationfrom them.
I think that's probably thebiggest thing.
What I've learned from myprevious currency manager is due
to retire this year, but healways made a great focus on
speaking to the interparty andbuilding a report them and
speaking to witness as much youcan because it really can give
you some little what they mightnot think is massive information
(15:08):
towards the start of the fire.
It can really build a picturein your head and be a different
hypothesis.
It just opens their eyes alittle bit sometimes From
speaking on a small little fire.
I examined the fire directly atthe back of their house, just a
few foot from the back door ofthe house.
It was a terraced house.
It wasn't sitting right footfrom the back door of the house.
It was a terrace house.
It wasn't sitting right.
There was no ignition sources.
(15:29):
I thought no identifiableignition sources there.
There was no electricity to thebuilding, etc.
The more I spoke, I gatheredinformation.
I found the seat of the fire.
There was no ignition sourceson natural ignition source on
seats.
The fire took my samples, mydebris and again spoke to
witnesses and there had been aprevious attempted arson at the
(15:49):
front door of their house anumber of weeks previous then.
So the ex-partner disrespecteda lit of fire at the front of
the house.
Again I spoke to witnesses.
Actually someone wants somecctv.
Examined the front of the houseto good.
Sometimes people get a bit andI would be guilty of it too.
Like you know, we all arebecause you get focused on the
seat of the fire.
You get focused where's theseat of the fire and you go
straight to the fire scene.
But it just shows that if youstick by the scientific
(16:12):
principles of fire investigationand you go back and you run
through them all, start on theexternal of the front of the
house the fire that had beenresponded to was at the rear of
the house and you come back tothe front that the bins had
tried to set fire.
There was also a seat of firein the bins at the front door of
the house.
Alarm bells rang in my head andwe called a bit of a case
conference.
After I had examined the scenewe found CCTV of the ex-partner
(16:35):
cycling around on the bike.
First of all, I had examined thescenes first, and then we
called a case conference withthe detective sergeant, we
initiated an investigation teamand from there we established a
cctv showing this ex-partnerstarting the fire, throwing
something in over the back wallof a house and back into the
shed, igniting the fire.
(16:56):
And then he attempted to ignitea fire in a wheelie bin at the
front of the house, thoughluckily enough he closed the
wheelie bin over.
So it was quite a series.
There was young kids in thehouse and two or three adults
with three young juvenile infantkids the front and the back
door.
He attempted to set on fire inthe house.
So what started off as a simplefire and we've all gone to them
the fire guards had been therethat night, the responding guard
(17:17):
had been there that night andnobody had suspected there was
any intent or maliciousness tothe investigation.
So that guy the detectivesarrested, interviewed and later
charged with arson, and servingfive years in custody for arson
after being convicted in thecircuit court yeah, I'd often
tell that story to young guards,young crime scene examiners,
(17:39):
and it's like keep your eyesopen.
It just shows.
Keep your eyes open and talk topeople.
You'll get information.
Gather all the informationavailable to you before making
any determinations or anyhypotheses.
And it was a great result.
From what started off, thescene hadn't been preserved or
anything like that, so wemanaged to get enough evidence
from the scene as well.
So what started off as simpleaccidental shed fire ended up to
(17:59):
male being given five years incustody in the circuit court for
arson fantastic it could haveturned out yeah, because it
turned out a lot worse.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
I was just saying like sometimes some of the more
simpler things are.
Simpler cases are where youactually learn some fairly
fundamental kind of lessons, andI was mentoring some csis when
I was still in force, in sort of2019, and very often they'd say
there wasn't anything else onthat day, or we had quite a few
staff on that day and they wouldsay, oh, do you think it's
(18:27):
worth going to this?
And it was like I used torespond just to say, well, why
wouldn't you go to it?
Because I guarantee, when youget there, you're going to learn
something, you're going to takesomething away from it, and
it's not always the big casesthat you think that leave those
impressions.
Sometimes it is the smallercases, is the smaller?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
cases Exactly.
Yeah, you can't always rely onwhat's been said initially, so
something that's so small mightnot turn Once we request it.
We'll attend everything andwe'll assess it first and see
how we go on.
It's just a priority.
You have to do it.
It just shows that sometimesthings can get left under the
cracks and it's why we'readvocating for all fire service
(19:03):
to be trained at some sort oflevel of fire investigation and
all responding police as well tohave the basis of fire
investigation.
I do a few talks with newprobationary guardi and new
police officers.
This is part of it as well isto show them that gathering
information is the mostimportant thing they can do
before assessing and making adecision and speaking with
(19:25):
injured parties and witnessesand gathering as much evidence
as they can and every day canthink of it for granted.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Exactly.
I remember a job in Irelandactually and I turned up at a
fire and it was gone to fullflashover and there wasn't a
great deal left.
And I was looking at there wassome marking and bits and pieces
on the electrical distributionboard and I was sort of going
down that avenue and but Iwasn't under% so I think I was
going to go undetermined becausewater had been applied whilst
the electricity was still on andthat sort of stuff.
(19:50):
So that kind of made sense ofmarking.
I was just hanging around andhanging around packing up at the
end of the day and I could seeI just did some general
house-to-house and I thinkcertainly on the private side I
think a lot of people shy awayor certainly some of the younger
(20:11):
members shy away from thathouse to house and you'd be
surprised how many times theyhave ring doorbells or someone's
actually recorded it.
I was going to go with theundetermined on this fire until
I could see there was a littleold lady.
She was just in her garden, shewas doing some gardening and I
just struck up a conversationwith her and she sort of we came
to the conclusion that I wasthere for the fire and she said
oh, I've got a video here of twolads putting fireworks,
shooting fireworks at the garage, which basically started the
fire off.
So it completely changed myview and obviously had actual
(20:33):
physical evidence then of whathad actually started the fire.
But just that littleinteraction with someone just
who was minding their ownbusiness.
I was minding my own business,just happened to say hello, how
are you doing?
And that struck up aconversation that witnesses and
especially in this day and age,ring doorbells and people will.
There's a predominance now assoon as something happens.
I put a couple of posts on mylinkedin about an aircraft that
(20:56):
was arcing and the number ofpeople that come off that
aircraft that's been evacuatedand they're immediately on their
phones recording it.
So there's so much informationthat witnesses have now.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah, the house house inquiries, like it's probably
in any major investigation theirons would take part in most
police forces.
It's one of the first thingsand first jobs that gets
assigned, because people love totalk and it's amazing and, as a
young police officer, whenyou're trying to get involved in
major investigations aroundyou're generally, as you're
starting off, you're left onthese house to house inquiries.
(21:26):
It's there you get a greatbuild up, you get a great
appreciation because you seereally how much people want to
tell you and they'll tell youwhat happened yesterday and the
day before and what's beenhappening for the last year and
they might never ring the policeand tell them this, but once
you come and knock on their, 99%of the people in the world are
very helpful and very, verydecent people.
(21:47):
Yeah exactly, yeah, exactly, andit's kind of a benefit.
Sometimes in your circlesthere's direct entry into
forensics and crime sceneinvestigation and FI In Ireland.
You kind of have to walk thebeat and walk the track first
and you get your experience inthe crime investigation.
I remember doing the crimescene investigation investigator
, the fire and arson course andgarcia connor and this one guy,
(22:09):
a quote.
I stood out because if you'reasking in court, how long have
you been investigating, whateverservice you have in the guards,
but every time you've been apiece after.
I've been investigating crimesince and you have.
And it's this build-up,curiosity and inquisition that
you've had, you've built up fromyour days is walking the beat
and speaking to the public anddoing house to house inquiries
and seeing case conferencesbefore you're ever involved in
(22:32):
crime scene investigation andfire investigation.
So you know what's required,like you know.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
So we're lucky yeah, and of course in the police when
you're interviewing witnessesand stuff that all feeds into
later.
You know what questions youwant answered.
You can feed that into thatteam that's dealing with that.
Or you've done the CCTVrecovery so you know how that's
enabled, how that's achieved,etc.
Etc.
So yeah, I think generalpolicing background gives you
(22:56):
it's a bit like military andpolice.
You get involved in so muchthing.
It gives you a fantasticfoundation for anything that you
build.
You've specifically gone intothe sort of CSI area and the
fire investigation side.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
That foundation helps you immensely.
Just on the broader kind ofaspect of it yeah, it does.
Yeah, it starts from the bottomand work your way up.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, I see You're so keen that you started a degree
in fire engineering, is it?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah, no, I started a degree in fire engineering in
2019, I believe, and in June2019, unfortunately.
Thankfully, we were best oftwins my kids so when I applied
for that position, I didn't knowwhat childcare was.
I had no kids at that time andthen in September I started that
and I adjourned it because Iwas actually accepted on the msc
(23:40):
and fire investigation inwolverhampton.
So in december I was juststarted, following september in
2020, so I left the fireengineering degree and then
covid kicked in after I leftthat so I couldn't travel over
and back to wolverhampton.
So that's on ice.
At the moment.
My attention is to go back tothat.
The fire engineering was quiteinteresting.
I wouldn't rule out going backto that now.
(24:01):
It was in watford it and it wasgreat it was run by chief fire
officer and two assistant chieffire officers as well were the
main inputs into it.
It was great to see I had neverbeen exposed to that side of
the fire engineering suppressionsystems and emergency lighting
and escape routes etc.
And it was great to kind of seethat and see what can be
obtained from fire suppressionunits and alarms etc for your
(24:23):
fire investigation.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah, definitely.
I just had on.
The previous episode to you isRory Haddon from Edinburgh
University and he's on the fireinvestigation, fire engineering
kind of side and I think it'sreally important that us, as
fire investigators, we need toknow sometimes what should be
there, what fire barriers shouldbe there, what measures are
there.
When I was on Grenfell Tower,one of our tasks was to recover
(24:47):
the hinges to see if they werefire-rated hinges and some of
the glass that was in the doorsas well, to see if the glass was
fire-rated, et cetera, to tryand understand the fire spread.
So yeah, I think often firefire investigators I wouldn't
say ignore the fire engineeringside of it, but I think we need
to be more aware of what shouldhave been there prior to the
fire, because obviously ninetimes out of ten intermission
(25:10):
strips and bits and piecesshould they be there.
But is there a lack there?
Fire doors etc, etc.
There's a real need, I think,and I think all credit to you
for looking at a fireengineering course.
I'll tell you my story in thatI've started a PhD twice at
Portsmouth University and twiceI've stopped.
I'm actually starting anotherone this fall.
But yeah, I fully get it wherelife gets in the way, and
(25:31):
studies certainly.
In my life anyway, studies havealways come second, if that
makes sense, to familycommitments.
But yeah, no shame in that atall.
That's her time lucky, hopefullyin that way if you had a top
gadget I'm a bit of a gadget manis there anything that you've
got in your toolkit that youthink you can have you moved
towards 3d scanning and thatkind of stuff, lidar and and all
(25:51):
that good stuff no,unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
You'd love to do that , but I suppose budgets of
government services aren'tallowing that at the moment.
I'd'd be quite traditional.
I wouldn't be gadget man toomuch.
Like you know my digital cameraI'm not really a gadget man, to
be honest.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
That's right.
Not everyone is.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, more traditional.
Now, when it comes to DIY anddrills and stuff like that, yeah
, I'm really gadgety.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I'm just thinking about the fire service.
Do you have an ignitable liquidcanine sort of facility?
Is that available to you overthere?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
it is in northern ireland fire and rescue service
and we can request it.
It's something that's probablylacking here in ireland as well,
like our detection dogs, andgarcia connor don't have that
capability at the moment.
If we have a mutual agreementthat we can request from
northern ireland fire and rescueservice and, as happened, all
right, chef for large scenes,etc.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Gotcha in terms of sort of.
I'm always fascinating from apractical point of view,
packaging wise.
How do you package your samplesfor ignitable liquids?
Is there any difference overthere or is it pretty much we
would do in the uk?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
generally nylon bags, as we would use.
Yeah, yeah, so nylon bags andtightness neck and all that,
yeah okay, good, good, all right, fascinating, fascinating,
believe it or not.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I knew time would fly because we're having a good
time but virtually run out oftime very much, see, I like to
keep the episodes down to sortof about 40 minutes and with
editing and bits and pieces,we're gonna run out of time, but
it's been absolutely.
Is there anything else?
I always give the opportunity,the guests opportunities or
anything else that you want totalk about.
Any burning issue.
There's another pun for you.
Any burning issues.
Is there anything else thatyou'd want to talk about?
(27:20):
Any burning issue?
There's another pun for you.
Any burning issues for you,owen, that you wanted to talk
about today and maybe promotethe Fire Investigation
Association again?
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah, I suppose the FIAI, the Fire Investigation
Association of Ireland.
We are going through some fluxof change at the moment, but we
really would love some newmembers.
It's a great association was abit skeptical to start for
joining it.
I was a bit maybe uh nervousand didn't believe I should be
placed there, didn't?
I was good enough for it's awelcoming organization.
It's great to meet other peopleinvolved in the association.
(27:48):
Like some of the talks andpresentations we had like during
covid, we start off webinarsand they're all live on our
website recorded for members.
Like some of us, it allowed us,whereas we're confined to
screen, we're allowed to screen.
We were allowed to bring ininternational speakers.
We had John Gambau and JohnOrtlund from the USA.
We gave topics on managingcomplex fire scenes From there.
(28:08):
We had a photography workshopfor fire scenes.
David Conway from the TechnicalBureau in the Guards of Guyana
gave us and we had some JeffPauley gave a presentation on
the post fire scene healthhazards.
They're all available on ourwebsite, fireinvestigationie as
recorded.
Webinars for members.
This year promises to be anexcellent lineup of speakers in
(28:31):
october in belfast.
We will publicize that on ourlinkedin page and our website,
so keep an eye out for that anddrop us a line.
Don't be afraid, we're alwayswelcoming new members and new
speakers and committee members.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
We're always there, yeah and, as I can attest to, if
you do turn up, you'll have afantastic time.
It's such a welcoming countryas a whole.
I've never had a bad experiencein Ireland and I've had some
bad experiences everywhere else,but never one in Ireland.
So thanks ever so much, owen,for coming on.
(29:04):
I really appreciate your time.
I know you're a busy individualand, unlike the rest of us,
you've got a shift pattern toadhere to, etc.
Etc.
So thanks again for coming.
I really appreciate it, noproblem.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Thank you again, mike , and thanks for inviting me,
and it's a great podcast and Ilook forward to hearing all the
rest of the episodes.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Thanks very much, cheers hey, thank you for
listening to csi on fire.
Please don't forget to like,subscribe and suggest future
topics on our web page.
Remember factor non-verbal.
Take care, good hunting.
I hope to see you on the nextone.
Cheers.
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