奈吉尔·马文的动物侦探们

A one-hour documentary for five in the UK and PBS in the US. The film looks at how animals and plants can help solve crime. I met the world's foremost crime-busting scientists and in the process learnt how they've used the natural world to convict some notorious felons. Flies and their maggots can reveal how long a body has lain undiscovered and microscopic pollen can match a killer to the scene of his crime. Sniffer dogs can track distant criminals and detect tiny quantities of petrol used to mount an arson attack. Even terrorists can be snared by animals- maggots found in the aftermath of an explosion can be analysed for traces of chemicals, giving vital clues as to who carried out the attack. I also visited a remarkable facility run by the University of Tennessee where cameras study the animals that come to feed on human corpses (see photo). Throughout the film we also followed a fictional murder from start to finish, committed by none other than yours truly(!) I thought I had committed the perfect crime, but animal and plant evidence proved too strong and eventually the police caught up with me.