Close to the bone

In 1994, the Wests' case marked a watershed for police forces across the country.

As officers undertook the grim task of digging up the garden of 25, Cromwell Road, Gloucester, to look for the bones of Fred and Rose West's victims their lack of knowledge became apparent.

They found bones, but they needed to know more than that. Were they animal or human bones? How long had they been there for? Were they from a man or a woman and of what age?

To find out police usually had to turn to experts even for the most basic of facts.

John Stewart, a senior scene of crimes examiner for Merseyside Police, said: "That case highlighted how much expertise was needed in this field.

"It was the Fred West case that put anthropology and archaeology in the spotlight. It was then that they realised they could glean a lot of knowledge by analysing the bones they found."

This summer, Mr Stewart has been one of several scenes of crimes officers and top detectives to attend a forensic anthropology course run by the University of Bradford's Department of Archaeological Science.

Over the last five years it has gained a worldwide reputation for excellence. Among those that have attended have been Belgian police officers, a Spanish magistrate and a consultant working for the police in Brazil.

Students spend a week in Bradford learning techniques such as using a microscope to distinguish between human and animal bones. They are taught how to age and sex skeletons and estimate people's height and ancestry.

Bones can even show whether someone came to a violent death and what diseases they suffered from. In one particularly gruesome technique the students are taught how to look at the type of insects found on a corpse or skeleton to determine how long it has been in the ground.

And this year, for the first time, the course also included an exercise in searching for and excavating human remains. Plastic skeletons were buried in a plot of land near Harewood House and students then had to find, and recover them using specialist forensic and archaeological techniques.

Detective Superintendent Graham Gooch, a senior investigating officer at Lancashire Police, will put the knowledge to use later this year when he heads a UN forensics team in Kosova.

"I probably should have come on this course years ago," he said. "In recent years the police force as a whole is learning the importance of proper excavation rather than just storming in with a shovel."

He said it was better that police knew the basic techniques for themselves rather than having to look for outside help all the time.

"It is not very often that we have to deal with buried bodies," he said. "But it is very important that when we do we deal with them properly. I think a lot of things were learned through the Fred West case."

Dr Chris Knusel, a lecturer in biological anthropology at Bradford, says that the knowledge has been built up over the last 80 years but has recently become much more refined.

"This is all pretty much new to the people attending the course or at least it is being presented in a more rigorous manner," he said. "But it is interesting to see the police becoming more aware of these techniques."

He is part of an international team of academics that teach the course. Some are based in Bradford and others fly over especially from America for the week.

They include Paul Sledzik, of the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, who works as the curator of a huge forensic collection of dead from the American Civil War.

And this year the students, who came from across the UK and included the Royal Ulster Constabulary's head of training, were taught by the world's leading expert on trauma.

Tennessee-based forensic pathologist and anthropologist, Steve Symes is the man the FBI turn to when they need advice.

Mr Stewart said: "I came on this course because Bradford is the best in the world. I wouldn't hesitate for a second in contacting them if I needed advice.