The NPIA Forensic Centre - Peter Walton

Another great evening!  Well over 60 members, partners and guests attended an informative, interesting and very enjoyable meeting.

We were honoured by the presence of 18 members and their partners from the Rotary Club of Durham Bede - the fact that we had soundly beaten them in a friendly (?) snooker match earlier in the day was not held against us.  We were also pleased to welcome our Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar from Japan - Mami Kanno; we trust she enjoyed this, her first visit to our Club.  And, to mark the occasion, we also welcomed Phil Hopps of the Washington Forge Club, together with his wife Joan; Phil is the Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar Co-ordinator for District 1030.

And then - breaking news! - President Eric was delighted to be able to announce that member Keith Willans had just been awarded Volunteer of the Year by the Voluntary Organisations' Network North East - VONNE - in recognition of his work over a number of years at St Cuthbert's Hospice.  In fact, Keith and his wife Vera had come straight from the awards ceremony to our meeting.  Our heartfelt congratulations for a very well deserved award go to Keith.

Finally, after all this excitement, we welcomed our speaker.  One of the advantages of these evening meetings is that we can hear talks that are a little bit different and a little bit longer than those at our normal lunch-time meetings.  The speaker this evening, Peter Walton of the NPIA Forensic Centre, certainly met these criteria.   Peter is the Head of the Academic Programme at the Forensic Centre at Harperley Hall in County Durham.  After giving us an overview of current practices in forensic science (nothing like CSI on television!) he went on to describe the devlopment of the Harperley Hall facility.  Originally a training location for the Durham and Northumbria police forces (where Peter once served), Harperley Hall became a "centre of excellence" for crime scene investigation, and, in 1990, (thanks in part to the efforts of Eddy Marchant, one of our members, when he was serving in a senior position with the Durham force) became the Forensic Training Centre for the National Policing Improvement Agency.  It is now used by 53 UK forces, the Garda and many ploice forces from throughout the world.  Harperley Hall is truly a "world class facility" of which we can be very proud.