Hundreds of Britain’s forensic psychologists, the people whose expertise was dramatised in the highly successful television series Cracker, starring Robbie Coltrane, are to descend on Edinburgh in June for a special event.

It is anticipated that up to 200 members of the British Psychological Society’s forensic division will attend their annual conference, which will take place at the Edinburgh Conference Centre, Heriot-Watt University, injecting around £276,000 into the local economy. The delegates deal with psychological aspects of legal processes, including applying theory to criminal investigations, understanding psychological problems associated with criminal behaviour and the treatment of criminals.

The two-day confernece is one of 10 new events to be hosted in the city with the assistance of the Edinburgh Convention Bureau (ECB). The conferences, which will take place between April 2008 and September 2009, will attract up to 1,900 delegates and generate an estimated £1.7 million.

The new events range in length from one to four days and cover a variety of topics from a leadership forum to financial services and legal issues to epidemiology.

“Edinburgh is open for conference business twelve months of the year which makes business tourism a vital contributor to the city’s and Scotland’s tourism industry,” said an ECB spokesperson.