Are Victim Detection and Forensic Evidence Search Dogs reliable?

[John]

Supplementary 2. What was the actual status of the dogs when in PDL? The PJ report ( http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/ANALYSIS-11-VOLUMES.htm ) highlighted by Ferryman refers to Grime as the "trainer/owner" of the dogs. Are we to presume that the PJ was confused about the ownership or are the files accurate? Was Grime operating for personal profit or as part of work undertaken by him for South Yorkshire Police?

Supplementary 3. Again suggested by Ferryman. If Grime was working for South Yorkshire Police why did he not adhere to the norms of such work including wearing police uniform, wearing the same levels of appropriate protective clothing at all time, ensuring non-essential personnel did not have the opportunity to further contaminate the scene, and making the report of the work supposedly undertaken as part of his role as an SYP officer on official headed paper and from an official address?

These issues have already been addressed on at least three occasions so asking the same question again will be deemed to be spam.

Mr Grime was employed by SYP when he was tasked to Portugal.  He retired in August 2007 and was not employed by the police when he wrote his Report thus the non official headed notepaper.  At that point he was correctly referred to as the trainer/owner of the dogs having been allowed to retain them on his retirement.

What uniform Mr Grime wore in Portugal was a matter for him.  He was not obliged to wear any uniform and protective clothing was a matter entirely for him at his discretion.

Hopefully at some point in the near future he will be able to reply to specific questions on his deployment in Praia da Luz.

[Teecah]

Are Victim Detection and Forensic Evidence Search Dogs reliable?

Well, not always as the case of Thomas Quick proves.  He was someone who confessed to a string of murders leading detectives to the places where he said the murders were committed.  A police dog called Zampo was used to build a case against him.

"During the course of the investigation, Quick mentioned at least 24 different places in Sweden and Norway where he had committed murders, handled dead bodies or left body parts," says Leyla Belle Drake, who was Hannes Råstam's literary agent. "Zampo marked for human remains 45 times at those 24 locations. Not a single trace of blood or body parts was ever found."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/20/thomas-quick-bergwall-sweden-murder

The reason why no trace of blood or body parts was found in those locations despite the positive alerts was because Thomas Quick didn't actually commit any of the murders. 

Why, I wonder, did the dog alert 45 times at those 24 locations if no murders had taken place there?  Perhaps one of the dog experts on this forum could explain...

That's too much of a coincidence for me.

How about scent line ups? How reliable are they?

[John]

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[John]

Posters are reminded to discuss the topic and not each other.  TY

[ferryman]

That's too much of a coincidence for me.

How about scent line ups? How reliable are they?

Forensic line-ups.

If you mean controlled experiments, probably the most famous is the Hamburg carpet-square experiment, where a very high level of accuracy (well over 90%) was achieved, although errors were made.

But often missed is the way that experiment is most relevant to dog-deployment in PdL; it (the Hamburg carpet-square experiment) was driven by the principle of cross-contamination. 

The bodies of two dead men were covered in cotton blankets to simulate thin layers of clothing and also to prevent direct contact of the carpet-squares with the bodies.  Then the carpet squares were passed underneath and close to (but not touching) the buttock of either man and held in that position for lengths of time that varied.

Every carpet-square thus positioned (for whatever length of time) was contaminated with a death scent by cross-contamination.

Indeed, Grime himself was asked about cross-contamination in his rogatory interview and replied that it (cross-contamination) is immediate.

Why, then, was there wholesale disregard of the principle in Grime's deployment of Eddie in PdL?

ETA: Welcome to the board, Tee

[Alfred R Jones]

Why are you assuming the dog was  'wrong'   ?   (  for whatever reason ) 

I mean,  Madeleine McCann disappeared without trace and was last seen alive   ( seven years ago  )  in the very apartment where the cadaver dog barked his alert

On what basis do you assume there must be some  reason,    OTHER   than because he detected the scent of the missing child's dead body,   for the dog alerting  ?   

Do you accept that the dog may have alerted for no other reason than he DID  detect  the scent of the missing child's dead body  ?

I accept that the dog could have alerted correctly to cadaver odour which may or may not have come from the missing child's dead body.  However, for the dog to have alerted to the scent of the dead child, I would be required to accept the possibility that a whole chain of unlikely events occurred leading up to the child's death.  Whilst I also accept that these events are possible I find no evidence whatsoever to support them which leads me to conclude that they most probably didn't happen.
 
Do you accept that the dog, like Zampo in Sweden,  may have just got it wrong?

[Carana]

These issues have already been addressed on at least three occasions so asking the same question again will be deemed to be spam.

Mr Grime was employed by SYP when he was tasked to Portugal.  He retired in August 2007 and was not employed by the police when he wrote his Report thus the non official headed notepaper.  At that point he was correctly referred to as the trainer/owner of the dogs having been allowed to retain them on his retirement.

What uniform Mr Grime wore in Portugal was a matter for him.  He was not obliged to wear any uniform and protective clothing was a matter entirely for him at his discretion.

Hopefully at some point in the near future he will be able to reply to specific questions on his deployment in Praia da Luz.

I disagree, John. I find them to be valid points which don't seem to be clear.

Personally, I find the phrasing of "trainer/ owner" (the PT original stated "tratador/dono") to simply express who was in charge of the dogs, although I also see the point that it wasn't specified that the handler was oficially from the UK police. The phrasing doesn't make it clear.

And I also wonder about the second point: why wouldn't an official deployment report be on official letterhead?

[Alfred R Jones]

No, I hadn't intended to imply that the dogs were cued to alert when there was nothing to alert to.

I must admit that I didn't read the article you posted yesterday about the case of 45 false alerts, I was too annoyed by the uniform thing.

I shall do so today though.

OK, thanks - I'd be very interested to know what your thoughts are on Zampo  (the dog that falsely alerted in the Thomas Quirk case) when you're ready to give them.

[Angelo222]

I disagree, John. I find them to be valid points which don't seem to be clear.

Personally, I find the phrasing of "trainer/ owner" (the PT original stated "tratador/dono") to simply express who was in charge of the dogs, although I also see the point that it wasn't specified that the handler was oficially from the UK police. The phrasing doesn't make it clear.

And I also wonder about the second point: why wouldn't an official deployment report be on official letterhead?

Use your loaf Carana.  MG wasn't in a position as a civilian to use SYP stationary, are you for real?

As an aside, tratador doesn't translate as trainer strangely but as handler and dono translates as donor and not owner. Another example of translator liberal input per chance?

[Carew]

OK, thanks - I'd be very interested to know what your thoughts are on Zampo  (the dog that falsely alerted in the Thomas Quirk case) when you're ready to give them.

I know your question is directed at Cariad............but just to clarify what you mean by "falsely alerted."

Do you mean that no forensic evidence was found at the alert sites, which confirmed the alerts?

I just wondered how it could be ascertained that no historical cadaver scent could have been present at the sites?

I`d be glad of any info about this possibility..........We`ve been told that a deceased relative of a former resident`s  death-bed hospital garments may have been the source of cadaver contaminant in 5A by transference.........These "reasons" for alerts do crop up.

As with the so called coconut/skull tale........We don`t know whether the dog alerted coincidentally to some residual scent around the same site.

(Just wondering about it .)

[Carana]

Use your loaf Carana.  MG wasn't in a position as a civilian to use SYP stationary, are you for real?

Tratador doesn't translate as trainer strangely but as handler and donor translates as the same word.

I'm aware that tratador can translate as handler/ keeper, whatever and that dono can translate as owner / master.

That's not the issue.

My question is why wouldn't a report from someone officially deployed not be on headed paper?

How does that work for SYP? No report for their files because he'd left? Aren't there normally things to clear up even if you've officially left?

[Angelo222]

I'm aware that tratador can translate as handler/ keeper, whatever and that dono can translate as owner / master.

That's not the issue.

My question is why wouldn't a report from someone officially deployed not be on headed paper?

How does that work for SYP? No report for their files because he'd left? Aren't there normally things to clear up even if you've officially left?

You're off topic.  Who MG was working for and how much he earned has no relevance here.

[Alfred R Jones]

I know your question is directed at Cariad............but just to clarify what you mean by "falsely alerted."

Do you mean that no forensic evidence was found at the alert sites, which confirmed the alerts?

I just wondered how it could be ascertained that no historical cadaver scent could have been present at the sites?

I`d be glad of any info about this possibility..........We`ve been told that a deceased relative of a former resident`s  death-bed hospital garments may have been the source of cadaver contaminant in 5A by transference.........These "reasons" for alerts do crop up.

As with the so called coconut/skull tale........We don`t know whether the dog alerted coincidentally to some residual scent around the same site.

(Just wondering about it .)

The alerts all took place in woodland if I recall correctly, at different spots - so, unless there had been (coincidentally) 45 separate deaths of humans in all the same places that Thomas Quirk led the police to I think it's safe to say they were false alerts - of course it's impossible to prove a negative - one has to use common sense in such a situation.

[Carew]

The alerts all took place in woodland if I recall correctly, at different spots - so, unless there had been (coincidentally) 45 separate deaths of humans in all the same places that Thomas Quirk led the police to I think it's safe to say they were false alerts - of course it's impossible to prove a negative - one has to use common sense in such a situation.

I feel there is usually more to these dog-alert topics than what is deduced from the use of one`s "common sense."

[Alfred R Jones]

I feel there is usually more to these dog-alert topics than what is deduced from the use of one`s "common sense."

I'm not sure I understand what you mean.  For Zampo to have alerted correctly 45 times in 24 locations it would mean that by some amazing coincidence Thomas Quick led the police to numerous places where numerous dead bodies and body parts had lain in previous months or years.  Common sense tells us that this is highly unlikely, surely?