Masterclass in action: how La Touche Training is raising the bar for investigators

In March 2025, La Touche Training launched its first ‘Strategic Investigative Decision-Making Masterclass’.

Having trained thousands of investigators and regulators on a wide variety of investigative skills at the early part of their career, we felt there was a need to offer more experienced investigators an advanced programme.

The masterclass is a three-day scenario-based and immersive training course relevant to all experienced personnel engaging in investigations.

The programme is delivered by two highly experienced ex-law enforcement trainers and is a very hands-on course designed to challenge investigators on the decisions they make at all stages of an investigation. The course assumes a level of knowledge and experience, so is not suitable for brand-new investigators, but does serve as a useful recap on:

• Case management and file preparation.
• Sources of intelligence and profiling.
• Analysis, evidential presentation of documents.
• Interviewing witnesses and suspects.
• Briefing and communication of intelligence.
• Lateral thinking and assimilation of intelligence.
• Open-source investigation briefing and dissemination.

The March public programme was attended by senior investigators from a range of regulators and those working in senior investigative private sector roles.

Speaking about the new course launch, Adrian Kiernan, Managing Director of La Touche Training commented:

“Over the past 30 years, we have trained thousands of investigators on the practical skills required to carry out an investigation to best practice standards so we understand the challenges and emerging trends that they face. We felt that more experienced individuals could benefit from an advanced course that brings together knowledge, skills and a wealth of experience to a complex scenario. Attendees work together in teams and are fed information in a realistic format to what they encounter in the real world. It provides an excellent reminder of how to use your entire investigative tool-kit in a safe training environment and how this can be easily transferred to the workplace. Like all our training, this course is skills-led with the attendees putting knowledge and skills in practice straight away.”

One of the course trainer Mark Heffer, added:

“This is a brand new course and was designed to test the delegates’ decision making during a complicated multi-day bespoke fraud and money laundering scenario. The delegates, all experienced investigators in their own fields, were working outside of their comfort zone and experiencing a variety of working practices and protocols. This gave rise to some healthy debate and discussions that added value to learning processes.

As a trainer it was an absolute pleasure to watch their strategies develop and to discuss their rationales for making complicated investigative decisions. Bill and I were delighted with the feedback which reinforced that learning at this level is not about textbooks alone but by doing.

One delegate wrote “The investigation scenarios were engaging, complex, challenging and very relevant – a truly educational and insightful course.”

If this is what a delegate thinks after the course, then we are achieving our aim.”

We are currently planning in-house versions of this course for a number of clients and plan to run the next public programme on the 1st, 2nd & 3rd of October. Would you like to attend? Read more here