DETECTIVE Chief Superintendent Steve Heywood understands the science of murder investigation.

Over a 20-year career with Greater Manchester Police he has worked on more than 50 murders and was one of the lead detectives in the inquiry that brought serial killer Harold Shipman to justice.

In 2003, he and former Detective Superintendent Andy Tattersall came up with the idea of changing the way GMP investigates homicide.

They created a specialised pool of expert murder police — the major incident team (MIT) — which took the lead in hunting killers.

It was the first of its kind in the country and caused controversy on its inception as some divisional detectives complained about missing out on important cases and losing valuable over-time.

The founding of the category C murder team was even more controversial as it uses civilian investigators rather than working police officers.

But now, in his third year in charge for GMP’s Serious Crime Division (SCD), Det Ch Supt Heywood is overseeing a unit that is the pride of the force. It has been held up as “excellent” by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, and is being copied throughout the country after achieving a murder detection rate of 97.3 per cent last year.

For more on this story see tomorrow's paper.