Stephen Andrews

Stephen Andrews is a fire and explosion scientist specialising in the investigation of fires and gas & vapour explosions (non-terrorist). He is a lecturer in forensic fire investigation, in the School of Forensic & Investigative Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. He is also a forensic fire investigation consultant acting as an associate of Fire Investigations (UK) LLP. He has extensive experience as an expert witness for the Criminal Justice System, and for HM Coroner. He was formerly a senior forensic scientist with the Forensic Science Service Ltd. Prior to that he was a fire and explosion research scientist with the Health & Safety Executive at the fire and explosion facility of the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL), and the Fire Research Station of the Building Research Establishment (now BRE Ltd). He has been involved in over 1000 fire-related cases including high profile murders, attempted murders, arson with intent, industrial fires and explosions. He has a particular interest in fatal fires, especially the damage to bodies by fire in cases of immolation & self-immolation. He has developed a unique fire test dummy for forensic casework, and this has been used in providing reconstruction fire evidence in 14 cases of murder or attempted murder. He is also a specialist in petrol vapour explosions and has carried out full-scale explosion tests in criminal casework and for research and training.