Are Victim Detection and Forensic Evidence Search Dogs reliable?

[Mr Gray]

the argument from the sceptics seems to be edie is right because he cannot be proved wrong...which is a very weak argument

[slartibartfast]

it is impossible to prove a false alert....not because eddie hasn't made one...it simply is impossible so your logic is flawed...its a chocolate teapot argument

Celestial?

[ferryman]

Eddie's record speaks for itself and so does Jersey's children's home with underground torture chambers so there's only one winner.

The media needed little encouragement to paint a graphic and horrific picture of
institutionalised abuse of vulnerable children on the Island. We are clear from the
evidence that such reporting was condoned and even encouraged in a number of
the States of Jersey Police press releases which variously described the ‘partial
remains of a child’, ‘skull’, ‘shackles’, ‘bath’, ‘cellars’ and ‘blood’, none of which
transpired to be accurate. Even when the Attorney General challenged
CO POWER over the nature and effect of media reporting on the fairness of
proceedings against defendants charged with child abuse, CO POWER’s
supervisory intervention against his Deputy – the principal architect of the
misrepresentation in the media – was only to the extent of forwarding to the
Attorney General a copy of the Force’s media strategy which, in any event, could
hardly have been said to have been adhered to at that point.

Operation Havern.

Can't think why people rely on blogs rather than official reports.  I'm sure there's a reason ....

[G-Unit]

You need to define carefully what's wrong and right.

For purposes of a criminal enquiry, you want a dog to react when there is incriminating evidence to find; and not to react when there is no incriminating evidence to find.

Irrespective of the reasons, anything outside those parameters is wrong.

These dogs are trained to alert to cadaver scent. There's not always a body still there, unfortunately as those responsible tend to hide them.

[ferryman]

These dogs are trained to alert to cadaver scent. There's not always a body still there, unfortunately as those responsible tend to hide them.

They are trained to alert to cadaver scents, body parts and blood.  Dogs that react to pseudo-scents (as Eddie did) may also react to cadaverine, present in the bi-products of living humans (eg semen or urine)

[G-Unit]

the argument from the sceptics seems to be edie is right because he cannot be proved wrong...which is a very weak argument

My argument is that it's not known if Eddie was right or wrong. People saying he was wrong need to present evidence for their assertions otherwise it's just speculation.

[ferryman]

My argument is that it's not known if Eddie was right or wrong. People saying he was wrong need to present evidence for their assertions otherwise it's just speculation.

Anything not admissible in court is "wrong".

[G-Unit]

Anything not admissible in court is "wrong".

An alert which doesn't result in admissible evidence is an unconfirmed alert, which may or may not have been correct. In some cases evidence found later confirms the correctness of the alert, in others no such evidence is found. To call these alerts wrong is as incorrect as to call them right.

[ferryman]

An alert which doesn't result in admissible evidence is an unconfirmed alert, which may or may not have been correct. In some cases evidence found later confirms the correctness of the alert, in others no such evidence is found. To call these alerts wrong is as incorrect as to call them right.

A dog's role is to identify evidence humans determine as identifying victims or culprits.

When dogs stray outside that parameter, they are wrong, irrespective of the reason.

[ferryman]

An alert which doesn't result in admissible evidence is an unconfirmed alert, which may or may not have been correct. In some cases evidence found later confirms the correctness of the alert, in others no such evidence is found. To call these alerts wrong is as incorrect as to call them right.

Criminal enquiries are about finding evidence which solves crimes.

Anything inadmissible in court is not evidence but intelligence.

For all practical purposes, alerts that shed no light on the practise or details of a crime are wrong

[G-Unit]

A dog's role is to identify evidence humans determine as identifying victims or culprits.

When dogs stray outside that parameter, they are wrong, irrespective of the reason.

You can say what you like, the fact remains you cannot produce anything showing that Eddie's alerts were wrong.

[ferryman]

You can say what you like, the fact remains you cannot produce anything showing that Eddie's alerts were wrong.

The fact you don't understand is that I don't have to.

In fact I know that Eddie's alert to the car was right, but wrong, because it contributed nothing of worth to the enquiry.

And the fact that, as noted by a PJ officer, Eddie finally alerted in the places he had passed several times without alerting beforehand places question-marks, not so much over the dog, as over the handling of the dog; as does the fact that Grime wore the anti-cross contamination gear of his trade for only one inspection (of the vehicles) and was handed that video for personal, promotional, use.

Why do you think Grime, in his rogatory interview, was quizzed so closely about a dog's certainty of the scent he is trained to detect?

[G-Unit]

The fact you don't understand is that I don't have to.

In fact I know that Eddie's alert to the car was right, but wrong, because it contributed nothing of worth to the enquiry.

And the fact that, as noted by a PJ officer, Eddie finally alerted in the places he had passed several times without alerting beforehand places question-marks, not so much over the dog, as over the handling of the dog; as does the fact that Grime wore the anti-cross contamination gear of his trade for only one inspection (of the vehicles) and was handed that video for personal, promotional, use.

Why do you think Grime, in his rogatory interview, was quizzed so closely about a dog's certainty of the scent he is trained to detect?

If a dog's alert is confirmed by forensic testing the dog was 100% right. The dog doesn't know what the humans are looking for. The dog doesn't have a clue whose DNA humans are looking for. The dog reacts to the scent it is trained to find. End of.

[Alfred R Jones]

If a dog's alert is confirmed by forensic testing the dog was 100% right. The dog doesn't know what the humans are looking for. The dog doesn't have a clue whose DNA humans are looking for. The dog reacts to the scent it is trained to find. End of.

Eddie alerted to a sex clean up tissue.  Was he trained to alert to such things?  Do you think there might have been a corpse buried under the tissue and it was his stupid handler who assumed it was the tissue he was alerting to?

[ferryman]

If a dog's alert is confirmed by forensic testing the dog was 100% right. The dog doesn't know what the humans are looking for. The dog doesn't have a clue whose DNA humans are looking for. The dog reacts to the scent it is trained to find. End of.

Try again.

The whole purpose of investigating a crime is to find evidence that will crack it.

Any reaction from a dog that doesn't contribute to that aim is wrong.