Forensics

Inside the secret world of explosives forensics

The UK government's Forensic Explosive Laboratories (FEL) at Fort Halstead is clearly not a place that likes to advertise.

Yet here, in this sprawling collection of red-brick MOD buildings, pristine laboratories and curious ventilation chimneys, close to 2,000 pieces of evidence are brought in for forensic examination every year.

When the Pan Am jumbo was brought down over Lockerbie in 1988, parts of the shattered fuselage were transported here to Fort Halstead for analysis.

So too were fragments of the 7/7 London bombs in 2005 and the failed devices that fizzled but did not explode two weeks later.

Debris ranging from the IRA bombings to the Bali blasts of 2002, to an improvised homemade firework ends up on the examination tables, frequently resulting in the scientists' conclusions being used in court.