It's been a busy year for us, not least because we opened a new office in Leeds, which brings to six the number of offices we have in the UK staffed by full time forensic investigators and scientists.

"We have always provided investigative services to Clients in the north and north-east, but operating from a base in West Yorkshire gives us the chance to respond more quickly to incidents like fires that need evidence to be gathered as soon as possible" said Rod Newbery, Hawkins' Managing Director. "On a general note, improving our geographic coverage lays the groundwork for improving our service overall, so we hope over the coming year to expand further and establish additional offices."

Our Leeds office is run by Iain Woodward, who is a chemist by training and specialises in the investigation of fires and explosions. He began working for Hawkins at our Manchester office and has spent many hours on dark, cold and usually damp fire scenes learning the skills that are necessary to be able to determine where and why a fire started.

Also working in Leeds is John Camplin, whose role is to investigate matters that have an engineering element or 'twist' to them, for example mechanical failures, people becoming injured as a consequence of a machine malfunctioning and product liability issues, e.g. where a questionable design could affect a product's safety.