This is an interesting read too.
Sniffer Dogs ‘Can Hinder Police Work’Last comments on the site.
surreywebmaster says:
26/03/2011 at 17:26
I have received the following from a serving officer in relation to the Sky News report, which explains a great deal including the fact that the dogs in question were not police dogs at all but private security dogs with allegedly dubious credibility: It was again Sky who reported in Jersey that it was Police Dogs involved in the search, watching from here l was shouting at the TV that it was not. Sky just assumed or thought it would be more newsworthy l presume…or did the private security handler not give them the correct info or any info at all.
l have entered a reply on Sky News’s discussion board as l was a tadge annoyed by the so called experts at The NPIA, which is to be closed under the cuts, and Sky News typical ‘lets cause a row’ type of reporting.
Firstly lets remember that the report that is mentioned by Sky is in fact two years old so things have changed and are still changing in Victim Recovery dogs training.
The main discussion points are around Portugal and Jersey and the employment of a private company earning reputedly 1k a day plus expenses…l think l would blow my own trumpet if l could rake in that sort of money.
These two particular dogs were owned and worked by ex Police Officer Martin Grime, were not licensed in any way, and on the many occasions he was offered to attend a Regional School anywhere in the country to be assessed he declined. I know of many more stories regarding this individual and his ‘trail of death’ dogs and he is not a favourite of mine, he has set us back in the forensic expert world due to the two main stories.
As to whether or not the dogs did indicate something l do not think we will ever know….if only they could speak eh. If they did indicate something it could have been from anything, in the apartment in Portugal someone else could have injured themselves and left traces of blood…unfortunately the samples taken from the ‘find’ were insufficient to give any DNA readings….
The Jersey scene could have been exactly the same but l think someone needed to engage brain before speaking on this one…and l have yet to see anything conclusive on what he allegedly found.
Re a cover up…Why, if there was enough evidence to prosecute then why didn’t they…?
Finally from this ramble….. Regarding training we have an initial six week course and have for the last five years, with the usual one day a month and two one week refreshers annually. The new ACPO Manual draft is out and it has a comprehensive national policy on the training and handling of Victim Recovery dogs with I believe 10 or 11 disciplines that the teams have to pass competency tests on.
Don’t forget there have been many successes with these dogs and no doubt some failures.. some of which we do not know about. But we have found 11 bodies since we have been going and two murder weapons discarded some distance from the scenes…and some lucky ones amongst us have been to Ascension Island on a job. We regularly attend POLSA conferences and give talks and demos..
http://blog.old-and-bold.info/?p=3400