Terri Cole has worked nationally alongside the police advising on behavioural aspects of serious crime investigation for 17 years. Firstly working as a placement student at the National Crime Faculty alongside investigators and clinicians, then as an assistant and serious crime analyst in the Serious Crime Analysis Section and for the last 13 years as a Behavioural Investigative Adviser (at the National Crime Agency and precursor organisations). Her specialism is in relation to behavioural analyses of murder, rape and sexual offences committed by strangers. She has advised and provided reports to investigations in relation to offender profiling, offence linkage, crime scene assessment and prioritisation of persons of interest. She also worked for a number of years as a Victim Support volunteer. She has a first class undergraduate degree in Psychology with Criminal Justice from the University of Plymouth, and a PhD from the University of Surrey which explored a pragmatic psychological approach to the provision of behavioural investigative advice for difficult to detect murder investigations in the UK. Other research interests have included offender signature in serial rape, what Senior Investigators want from Behavioural Investigative Advisers, when such advice should be delivered, and offender post offence behaviour in homicide. She has spoken at numerous conferences and as a guest lecturer on many under and post graduate courses. She is a member of the British Psychological Society.
