Crime scene cleaner inspired by Hollywood

A painter and decorator said he was inspired by Hollywood icon Samuel L Jackson to quit his job and become a crime scene cleaner. 

Daniel Foreman, founder of Crime and Trauma Cleansing Specialists, said watching Jackson in a film about people who sweep up murder scenes prompted him to make a drastic career change.

Since starting in the unusual job he has cleared death scenes. He hopes to branch out to include vehicles and has a qualification from the National Academy of Crime Scene Cleaners.

He told The Argus: “I thought it was just an American thing but actually it is a growing industry.” The 31-year-old, who lives in Bexhill, continued: “We’ve basically been going for about six months officially.

“I was at home watching a Samuel L Jackson film, The Cleaner, when I came up with the idea.

“I thought it was really interesting.

“I did a three-day intensive course and did a lot of theory. But it is a lot of common sense.

“If someone has died and there is a lot of blood… you have to be 100 percent safe. “It is a lot about science.” He explained that one of his grisliest jobs involved a body in Bexhill which had been lying for six weeks before being discovered.

He said: “The smell was indescribable. “The mattress had to go and the carpet. It was pretty grisly.

“It was a wretched smell that sticks to the back of your throat.”

He explained how anything which had bodily fluids or blood on it had to be disposed of in a hazardous waste site.

He has now recruited his best friend Matt Faulkner, 31, of Hastings, to help out.

He said: “We would like to get in with the police, and have spoken to police procurement, or get the contract cleaning ambulances – you have always got blood and bodily fluid.”

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