Anthony Forde

Senior Lecturer and Head of the Serious Crime Analysis Unit
Course Leader Police and Criminal Investigation

Anthony Forde has considerable experience in criminal investigation. In his career he has gained operational experience of crime investigation from within the police service, as a lawyer and a forensic specialist.

Anthony's research interests now focus on combining these skills through the analysis and development of investigative ontology's, be it fraud or murder, in order to improve investigative practice and training. He is primarily concerned with the ability of the investigator to marshal information during an enquiry, how they analyse and critically evaluate that information in order to identify intelligence/evidence/suspects and construct facts or fallacies from that information and why. His work is applicable to both the public sector (police, military, security services etc) and the private sector (security investigations/consultancy). As a result he has undertaken consultancy work for agencies in both sectors of the security and investigations arena in order to improve investigative/forensic training and skills. Anthony is also a senior investigator with the Bellacollab Research Group within the Joseph Bell Centre for Forensic Statistics and Legal Reasoning at Edinburgh University. This is a group of international scholars who are developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems for use in criminal investigation. Anthony has also developed the first course in the country on criminal investigation for undergraduates and is the current head of that course for the University.

Anthony's research is intimately involved with investigative reasoning, crime scene reconstruction and criminal intelligence analysis. He is currently working with Richard Burgess of the Derbyshire Police on developing strategies to disrupt the activities of distraction burglars. He has also carried out work on false rape allegations and the disposal of human remains. He has undertaken numerous radio and television appearances for the BBC, giving expert opinion of investigative and forensic strategies