the cadaver dog

[brit1981]

If the only evidence against you was a dog alert and not a confession from someone who knew, then yes the chances are the case would collapse if it turned out your house was the only one searched. If someone else had spilled the beans then the prosecution is unlikely to rely on a dog alert.

I agree that the search should have been blinded by searching more properties without the handler being told which was the mccanns. i am not saying there was bias, but it will be argued in court that there was a posisbility even unconsciously of that. ut in fairness the media had shown photos of the flat so it would be impossible to not know it was theirs.

I think I read that they could not search the church because there were burials there and the dog would alert, but I cannot remember if this was a media report or a PJ report so have no idea as to the accuracy of that. But if grimes is correct and the dog alerts to historic and buried material it would make sense, I mean they could not go digging up every fresh grave i suppose.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Dogs have no bias.

 

[fabgod]

Snipped and bolded by me from here
http://www.mccannpjfiles.co.uk/PJ/MARTIN_GRIMES.htm

Vol IX p. 2481

FALSE ALERTS

'False' positives are always a possibility; to date Eddie has not so indicated
operationally or in training. In six years of operational deployment in over 200
criminal case searches the dog has never alerted to meat based and
specifically pork foodstuffs designed for human consumption. Similarly the
dog has never alerted to 'road kill', that is any other dead animal.
My experience as a trainer is that false alerts are normally caused by handler
cueing. All indications by the dog are preceded by a change in bahaviour.
This increased handler confidence in the response. This procedure also stops
handlers 'cueing' and indication. The dogs are allowed to 'free search' and
investigate areas of interest. The handler does not influence their behaviour
other than to direct the search.


I find this interesting, Mr Grimes would surely be setting himself up for stating false claims if he was to provide a statement to the Portuguese Police that was to be fraudulent?
I personally would therefore take it that he is stating this comment as fact, contrary to what others claim.

He also in the aboove paragraph, addresses the issue of "cueing" where he states that the dogs are allowed to free search, on that basis then, Mr Grimes must have "had a word" with the dog before he went in to the apartment, to tell him where to alert if we are to believe that the dogs were somehow prompted.

The fact is, the dogs that have never been proven to have been wrong in any case, have alerted only to where the Parents had been. This in itself is not evidence but it is an indication that cannot be ignored in the absence of any evidence of stranger involvement.

 

[brit1981]

First of all it is imposisble to say if the dogs have been wrong before. We know for a fact eddie has alerted before where no bodies have been found (jersey and the mccann case) and in the jersey case it has been established no bodies were ever there, no murders took place. Also as eddie only ever found one body by himself ourt of thirty odd cases when working for SY police we have no idea if he made a mistake when he did not alert. And as in the UK where his testing occurred it was not possible to test him with human tissue, so it is impossible to say for certain if he has ever made false negatives or positives. There is a good reason why Grime states that the dogs alerts cannot be taken as evidence on their own. If we did we would be arresting people at a jersey care home for seriel murder. Only a few months after the mccann case Eddie no longer had a license to be used in the UK (nor do I think he had one for any country requiring a license) as there was a failure to have him tested and approved which was a requirement for licensing.

Grime clearly states when asked about the EVRD (Eddie) that "They find, however, and give the alert for dried blood from a live human being.". Now we know that in the mccanns flat there was someone who bled for 45 mins, and someone who had sustained a cut requiring stitches during their stay, yet if Grime is correct about Eddie alerting to dried blood from a live human no-one has ever bled in the other three or four flats they looked in. The PJ should really have got testimony from the previous occupants of all the flats they searched in to confirm that rather than just speak to the previous occupants of 5A

 

[fabgod]

bolded by me

First of all it is imposisble to say if the dogs have been wrong before. We know for a fact eddie has alerted before where no bodies have been found (jersey and the mccann case) and in the jersey case it has been established no bodies were ever there, no murders took place. Before taking this statement for granted, I would prefer to wait and see what happens with future litigation related to that very case and in addition, The whole point of the dog is not to "find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process which needs to be developed from clues and signals, which the dog is a part of
Also as eddie only ever found one body by himself ourt of thirty odd cases when working for SY police we have no idea if he made a mistake when he did not alert. Again, the dogs job is not to "Find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process, kind of like a pen , without paper and someone to write with said pen, there is no point to the pen, it needs to be used as a tool in the process, I hope that my explanation is clearer now
And as in the UK where his testing occurred it was not possible to test him with human tissue, so it is impossible to say for certain if he has ever made false negatives or positives. But, as you have yourself pointed out in other posts, but have ommitted to include in this one, Eddie was in fact trained on cadaver in the USA, unless American cadaver is different in some way, i fail to understand the omission
There is a good reason why Grime states that the dogs alerts cannot be taken as evidence on their own. If we did we would be arresting people at a jersey care home for seriel murder.
Why would we be arresting people for serial murder, you yourself stated with conviction, that there were no murders in Jersey and as has been stated elsewhere, the dogs do not assign guilt, they merely alert to whatever their training was?
Only a few months after the mccann case Eddie no longer had a license to be used in the UK (nor do I think he had one for any country requiring a license) as there was a failure to have him tested and approved which was a requirement for licensing. Maybe thats because Mr Grimes was at that time a retired Police officer as stated in the PJ files and he had "retired" from working for the UK police, just to mention, Mr Grimes subsequently went to work for the FBI. I again don't understand the validity of the post, does it infer that the dogs could no longer do the job?
Grime clearly states when asked about the EVRD (Eddie) that "They find, however, and give the alert for dried blood from a live human being.". Now we know that in the mccanns flat there was someone who bled for 45 mins, and someone who had sustained a cut requiring stitches during their stay, yet if Grime is correct about Eddie alerting to dried blood from a live human no-one has ever bled in the other three or four flats they looked in. The PJ should really have got testimony from the previous occupants of all the flats they searched in to confirm that rather than just speak to the previous occupants of 5A
The PJ were not looking at a disappearance from any other flats, they were looking for evidence in 5A, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to assume that when alerts led to recovery of blood and signals that may have been from Cadaver odour, that it was the correct route forward to investigate the happenings in teh apartment 5A and not to have to search 100's of flats in the area, which would never happen anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the UK

Facts are the key in my opinion, beliefs are fine, but that is just what they are -beliefs for whatever personal reason.

 

[brit1981]

Before taking this statement for granted, I would prefer to wait and see what happens with future litigation related to that very case and in addition, The whole point of the dog is not to "find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process which needs to be developed from clues and signals, which the dog is a part of
Actually as eddie is an enhanced victim recovery dog his role is to recover the victim(s). he was not meant to be used as an investigative tool. And are you saying there is an ongoing investigation into murder at the jersey care home. As far as I was aware the case was closed as the police believed no killings had been committed.

Again, the dogs job is not to "Find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process, kind of like a pen , without paper and someone to write with said pen, there is no point to the pen, it needs to be used as a tool in the process, I hope that my explanation is clearer now
Eddie was a tool used to recover the victim, hence his title enhanced victim reovery dog.
But, as you have yourself pointed out in other posts, but have ommitted to include in this one, Eddie was in fact trained on cadaver in the USA, unless American cadaver is different in some way, i fail to understand the omission
But he was not tested on human tissue, and there is no record of his US training being very long at all. His testing occurred in the UK, as did most of his training and therefor ehe has not been tested using human tissue.

Why would we be arresting people for serial murder, you yourself stated with conviction, that there were no murders in Jersey and as has been stated elsewhere, the dogs do not assign guilt, they merely alert to whatever their training was?
Exactly Eddie alerted in jersey and it was found that there were no bodies and no killings. So we cannot say his alerts mean a body was there.

Maybe thats because Mr Grimes was at that time a retired Police officer as stated in the PJ files and he had "retired" from working for the UK police, just to mention, Mr Grimes subsequently went to work for the FBI. I again don't understand the validity of the post, does it infer that the dogs could no longer do the job?

No it means Grimes carried on working with the dogs but refused to have them tested.

The PJ were not looking at a disappearance from any other flats, they were looking for evidence in 5A, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to assume that when alerts led to recovery of blood and signals that may have been from Cadaver odour, that it was the correct route forward to investigate the happenings in teh apartment 5A and not to have to search 100's of flats in the area, which would never happen anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the UK

But because the PJ failed to follow up on the histories of the other flats it means the searches are not going to be any sort of evidence in court. The first thing Grimes will be asked is if he was correct when he stated eddie would alert to dried blood from a living person. then he will be asked if the fact that eddie did not alert in the other flats means there has never been any dried blood in there. then the Pj are going to be asked if they confirmed that no-one had ever bled in the flat and they will have to say they did not confirm it one way or the other. Then it is very possible that the previous occupants of the other flats will be questioned and if any of them say they bled in the flat, Grime is going to be asked why his dog failed to alert to it and therefore the reliability of his dogs will be shown up. The PJ should have thought it through and considered this eventuality and made sure they had covered it. If Grimes states in court thta his dog alerts to dried blood from a living person, and did not alert in the other flats, and then it turns out the other flats did have dried blood in them it will be a fiasco and it woudl have been better to ascertain this during the investigation rather than have it blow up in their face during a prosecution.

 

[fabgod]

Before taking this statement for granted, I would prefer to wait and see what happens with future litigation related to that very case and in addition, The whole point of the dog is not to "find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process which needs to be developed from clues and signals, which the dog is a part of
Actually as eddie is an enhanced victim recovery dog his role is to recover the victim(s). he was not meant to be used as an investigative tool. And are you saying there is an ongoing investigation into murder at the jersey care home. As far as I was aware the case was closed as the police believed no killings had been committed.

Again, the dogs job is not to "Find" the body, the dog is a tool in the process, kind of like a pen , without paper and someone to write with said pen, there is no point to the pen, it needs to be used as a tool in the process, I hope that my explanation is clearer now
Eddie was a tool used to recover the victim, hence his title enhanced victim reovery dog.
But, as you have yourself pointed out in other posts, but have ommitted to include in this one, Eddie was in fact trained on cadaver in the USA, unless American cadaver is different in some way, i fail to understand the omission
But he was not tested on human tissue, and there is no record of his US training being very long at all. His testing occurred in the UK, as did most of his training and therefor ehe has not been tested using human tissue.

Why would we be arresting people for serial murder, you yourself stated with conviction, that there were no murders in Jersey and as has been stated elsewhere, the dogs do not assign guilt, they merely alert to whatever their training was?
Exactly Eddie alerted in jersey and it was found that there were no bodies and no killings. So we cannot say his alerts mean a body was there.

Maybe thats because Mr Grimes was at that time a retired Police officer as stated in the PJ files and he had "retired" from working for the UK police, just to mention, Mr Grimes subsequently went to work for the FBI. I again don't understand the validity of the post, does it infer that the dogs could no longer do the job?

No it means Grimes carried on working with the dogs but refused to have them tested.

The PJ were not looking at a disappearance from any other flats, they were looking for evidence in 5A, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to assume that when alerts led to recovery of blood and signals that may have been from Cadaver odour, that it was the correct route forward to investigate the happenings in teh apartment 5A and not to have to search 100's of flats in the area, which would never happen anywhere else in the world, certainly not in the UK

But because the PJ failed to follow up on the histories of the other flats it means the searches are not going to be any sort of evidence in court. The first thing Grimes will be asked is if he was correct when he stated eddie would alert to dried blood from a living person. then he will be asked if the fact that eddie did not alert in the other flats means there has never been any dried blood in there. then the Pj are going to be asked if they confirmed that no-one had ever bled in the flat and they will have to say they did not confirm it one way or the other. Then it is very possible that the previous occupants of the other flats will be questioned and if any of them say they bled in the flat, Grime is going to be asked why his dog failed to alert to it and therefore the reliability of his dogs will be shown up. The PJ should have thought it through and considered this eventuality and made sure they had covered it. If Grimes states in court thta his dog alerts to dried blood from a living person, and did not alert in the other flats, and then it turns out the other flats did have dried blood in them it will be a fiasco and it woudl have been better to ascertain this during the investigation rather than have it blow up in their face during a prosecution.

Ok the comment you are making needs to be backed up
can you show proof of you claim that Mr Grimes refused to have the dogs licensed?

RE the searches of the apartments and the dogs, what court case?

Eddie is a EVRD his work is to enable the recovery of people, you seem to be getting into wordplay a little. the dogs job is to alert to what he is trained to do. There is no possible way that by taking a EVRD into an apartment in PdL which had been searched countless times before, that the EVRD would "find" a body.
It is absolutely plainly evident that the EVRD was there to search for traces of a Cadaver, this on its own is not admissible in any court case that may arise from the EVRD alerts.
The job of finding and analysing the evidence is completely down to human investigators

 

[brit1981]

Ok the comment you are making needs to be backed up
can you show proof of you claim that Mr Grimes refused to have the dogs licensed?

The dog was not licensed in the UK by the time of the jersey searches. No-one can by law make a dog be licensed apart from the actual handler. It just means if they fail to get the dog licensed they are refused permission to work in the UK. In fairness to Grime he may not have intended to work back in the UK, but why not just get the dog licensed anyway, rather than risk that being brough up in any cases he is witness to.
RE the searches of the apartments and the dogs, what court case?
Well I would assume if they ever find who is responsible for Madeleine's disappearence they woudl prosecute that perso, that is the norm if someone disappears a child.

Eddie is a EVRD his work is to enable the recovery of people, you seem to be getting into wordplay a little. the dogs job is to alert to what he is trained to do. There is no possible way that by taking a EVRD into an apartment in PdL which had been searched countless times before, that the EVRD would "find" a body.
It is absolutely plainly evident that the EVRD was there to search for traces of a Cadaver, this on its own is not admissible in any court case that may arise from the EVRD alerts.
But the fact he is not meant to be used in this manner means it is extremely shaky for his alerts to be used as evidence. As you say it is not admissible in court, but that seems to be ignored by many who take it as evidence against the mccanns (when you have peopel campaigning to shut down police reviews of the case, sending letters to missing peopel demanding madeleine is removed from their missing pages and are using the dog alerts to justify this behaviour it is highly worrying)
The job of finding and analysing the evidence is completely down to human investigators
I agree, and I do think that in some cases police allow themselves to be led by the dogs too much as in the shanon mathews case (and I am just waiting for the police to blame the dog not alerting for their human error in not finding Tia sharpe for another two and a half days). It is sloppy in my opinion - just because a dog alerted does not mean you stop looking at other leads that do not implicate the person whose home they alerted in, and just because a dog does not alert does not mean you do not bother to search properly. We have no issue questioning human expertise so we should have no problem questioning dog expertise.

 

[fabgod]

Ok the comment you are making needs to be backed up
can you show proof of you claim that Mr Grimes refused to have the dogs licensed?

The dog was not licensed in the UK by the time of the jersey searches. No-one can by law make a dog be licensed apart from the actual handler. It just means if they fail to get the dog licensed they are refused permission to work in the UK. In fairness to Grime he may not have intended to work back in the UK, but why not just get the dog licensed anyway, rather than risk that being brough up in any cases he is witness to.
RE the searches of the apartments and the dogs, what court case?
Well I would assume if they ever find who is responsible for Madeleine's disappearence they woudl prosecute that perso, that is the norm if someone disappears a child.

Eddie is a EVRD his work is to enable the recovery of people, you seem to be getting into wordplay a little. the dogs job is to alert to what he is trained to do. There is no possible way that by taking a EVRD into an apartment in PdL which had been searched countless times before, that the EVRD would "find" a body.
It is absolutely plainly evident that the EVRD was there to search for traces of a Cadaver, this on its own is not admissible in any court case that may arise from the EVRD alerts.
But the fact he is not meant to be used in this manner means it is extremely shaky for his alerts to be used as evidence. As you say it is not admissible in court, but that seems to be ignored by many who take it as evidence against the mccanns (when you have peopel campaigning to shut down police reviews of the case, sending letters to missing peopel demanding madeleine is removed from their missing pages and are using the dog alerts to justify this behaviour it is highly worrying)
The job of finding and analysing the evidence is completely down to human investigators
I agree, and I do think that in some cases police allow themselves to be led by the dogs too much as in the shanon mathews case (and I am just waiting for the police to blame the dog not alerting for their human error in not finding Tia sharpe for another two and a half days). It is sloppy in my opinion - just because a dog alerted does not mean you stop looking at other leads that do not implicate the person whose home they alerted in, and just because a dog does not alert does not mean you do not bother to search properly. We have no issue questioning human expertise so we should have no problem questioning dog expertise.

Again
can you show proof of you claim that Mr Grimes refused to have the dogs licensed?
You havent shown any evidence of your statement.

With regard to my question of what court case?
SO there is no court case?
and if there was a court case and it wasnt admissible to court for the dogs work to be taken into account, why would MrGrimes be present?
If there is no death associated, why would there be a need for Mr Grimes to be present?

You are stating again that the evidence of alerts is shaky.
Why would that matter, as you say belatedly, the dog searches are presumably not admissable, it is the findings and implications of said searches that are admissible, which presumably would not be shaky

Finally, you again bring in the Tia Sharp and Shannon Matthews angle, they have been discussed, there is nothing more to say about those cases regarding the dogs, the dogs did exactly what they were trained to do as far as official statements go and it is those statements that I choose to believe over unfounded claims portrayed as fact.
to quote your post "We have no issue questioning human expertise so we should have no problem questioning dog expertise"
Questioning expertise is looking at facts and making an informed decision on evaluating those facts.
On evaluation of facts and not pointless comment and re comment, I believe that EVRD VRD CSI dogs do exactly what they are trained to do, they do it without bias and do it to a very high standard.
There is a wealth of factual proof available as testimony to these dogs work and not one credible source of factual evidence that states they are anything but excellent assistants in the search for evidence.
That pretty much sums it up.

 

[brit1981]

But here is a news report on what NPIAA think about the use of dogs http://news.sky.com/story/844071/sniffer-dogs-can-hinder-police-work

Police sniffer dogs used to find missing people and dead bodies "urgently" need better training and monitoring, according to an official report.

The Government's National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) said specialist victim recovery dogs are not trained to approved standards, with no way of gauging their competence.

The NPIA reviewed the use of the specialist sniffer dogs two years ago, but its report has only now surfaced following a request by Sky News.

"There is no consistency in what the dogs can do and how it is done," the report states.

"Furthermore, there is no national standard for accrediting dogs and handlers or record keeping of the success rate they achieve."

The report added the dogs, which are trained to detect the smell of dead bodies, have "the potential to cause complications in an inquiry".

"There is an urgent need to have national policy on their training, accreditation and deployment," it concluded.


The review uses a kidnap investigation to highlight how dogs have tied up valuable police time.

The animals detected human remains in old furniture that had been bought from houses where the owner had died.

The use of victim recovery, or cadaver dogs, has proved to be controversial in a number of high-profile cases in recent years.

A South Yorkshire Police spaniel called Eddie was said to have sniffed out the "scent of death" at the Haut de la Garenne children's home in Jersey and the apartment from which Madeleine McCann disappeared in Portugal.

But in both cases nothing more was found and South Yorkshire Police say Eddie is no longer working with them.

Victim recovery dogs from four different police forces were used during searches for kidnapped schoolgirl Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire in 2008.

The dogs found evidence of dead bodies, but officers later discovered the corpses were nothing to do with her disappearance.

"The properties searched contained a high level of second-hand furniture bought from dwellings where someone had died," according to the NPIA report.
"This resulted in numerous indications that required further investigation to confirm whether they were connected to the investigation, or to previous owners of the furniture."

The Association of Chief Police Officers told Sky News it was consulting individual police forces and hoped to have national training standards for the dogs later this year.


this is about eddie and the jersey case. the article is about the entire fiasco, but i have just copied the bit about eddie and grime. The paragraphs do nto follow on directly as it is spread throughout the article. the stuff inbetween was about harper. But the link goes to the full article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...robe-branded-20million-shambles.html#comments

Eddie the sniffer dog - the animal that had supposedly found the 'scent of death' in the Portuguese flat where Madeleine McCann disappeared - no longer had a licence for UK police forensic work when Harper started using him in Jersey. Eddie, whose owner, Martin Grime, was paid £93,600 for less than five months' work, triggered the first excavations by barking at a spot where Harper's team then unearthed what was claimed to be part of a child's skull. In fact, as a Kew Gardens expert has now confirmed, it was a piece of coconut shell.

It was true that in 2003 builders at Haut de la Garenne had found bones, but they were from animals. Moreover, there had never been a single contemporary report of a child going missing.
Gradwell said: 'Even children in care have families, friends and teachers, none of whom had ever reported a disappearance. Lenny has said one of his problems was the Jersey records were patchy and incomplete, so it was hard to be sure who had actually been there. In fact, they were excellent and very detailed.'
As the emails to Coupland demonstrate, at first Harper displayed a healthy scepticism. So what made him change his mind? According to a senior detective who worked on Harper's team, one factor was sniffer dog Eddie's handler, Martin Grime.
'Grime made a presentation, showing him [Harper] a video 'They were still formal suspects and the case had got worldwide publicity. It seemed to get Lenny very excited. I think Grime kind of bewitched him.'

Yet Grime, who had left South Yorkshire police in July 2007 and was selling his dogs' services through his private business, had failed to keep up the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) licence that certified Eddie as a police 'cadaver dog'. Grime did have a second sniffer dog, Keela, but its licence expired a fortnight after they arrived in Jersey.
ACPO rules governing UK police dogs state: 'Dog and handler teams that fail to remain in-licence are deemed "not competent".' Grime admitted to The Mail on Sunday that the dog's licence had lapsed. He said: 'After I retired, my dogs were tested according to my own standards which are more stringent than ACPO's. But Jersey is not in the UK, so they were in their rights to employ whoever they wanted.' He said his fees were 'all agreed' and that he had given Jersey a 'discount'.
Asked about the 'human remains' found by Eddie that turned out to be coconut, Grime said bizarrely: 'People aren't right 100 per cent of the time. Otherwise they wouldn't be human.'
The auditors' interim report concludes: 'It was an expensive mistake to bring in Mr Grime. It would have been far preferable and much cheaper to have tried to obtain appropriately trained dogs and handlers from UK police forces.'
Harper, it adds, did not consider this option. For much of the time Grime spent on Jersey, the report reveals, he was not even working with his dogs, but as an assistant to the Haut de la Garenne crime scene manager - duties for which he had no qualifications, and which did 'not justify the payment to him of £650 a day'.


This article brings two other issues up
1) If the mccanns were at this time still aguidos it means the video was being shown at a time when judicial secrecy was in place - how is that allowed?
2) Grimes says he did not matter if his dogs had a license because he tested them to his own standards which were more stringent. I have found no record anywhere apart from Grime himself that has certifies Grime's testing as more stringent. It seems a bit like saying you can drive without a license because you tested yourself and you have decided your testing is more stringent than the DVLAs. Has anyone actually seen any proof that Grime's tests were more stringent.

 

[Donjeta]

If there are no acceptable national standards and no accreditation that would ensure that the dog is competent why should we care if there is a licence or not? if the licence doesn't mean that the dog is properly trained to acceptable national standards (since there aren't any) it presumably just means that the handler paid a fee to get a certificate that misleadingly gives the impression that it's been properly trained.

 

[brit1981]

the dog has to be tested before it gets its license, it is not just a fee paying exercsie. The issue is that dogs from different police forces were being tested to different standards rather than one national standard i.e dogs from london had to meet different statndards to ones from south yorkshire.

here is what ACPO says about licensing "It will be for individual forces to determine the skills they require their dog and handler teams to possess." from page 24 of http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/uniformed/2011/201103UOPDogsMoG1.1.pdf

 

[gord]

I dont think anyone would dismiss all police dogs and their capabilities . But dogs at the end of the day do not speak they dont communicate in words - hence they are used to what we know they do isolate areas of interest for the authorities to look for corroberative evidence. ie DNA, where it shouldnt be , or even a body. - but that is what they do they are an aid ( very imprtant one ) to help police.

It is a pointless argument - although maybe fun - to argue about what the dogs did or didnt find - as not one piece of smoking gun evidence came out of it. We can look at the PJ sniffer dogs who werer there the next day - they found nothing either - in my mind if the body had been hid someone nearby - these dogs would have got there - but who knows . So this argument will go round and round and at the end of the day unless someone confesses or a body is one day found it will be just a futile excercise as neither party can offer anything 100% .

The only concrete thing is that the mcanns were not charged for any crime by any police force.

 

[fabgod]

I dont think anyone would dismiss all police dogs and their capabilities . But dogs at the end of the day do not speak they dont communicate in words - hence they are used to what we know they do isolate areas of interest for the authorities to look for corroberative evidence. ie DNA, where it shouldnt be , or even a body. - but that is what they do they are an aid ( very imprtant one ) to help police.

It is a pointless argument - although maybe fun - to argue about what the dogs did or didnt find - as not one piece of smoking gun evidence came out of it. We can look at the PJ sniffer dogs who werer there the next day - they found nothing either - in my mind if the body had been hid someone nearby - these dogs would have got there - but who knows . So this argument will go round and round and at the end of the day unless someone confesses or a body is one day found it will be just a futile excercise as neither party can offer anything 100% .




The only concrete thing is that the mcanns were not charged for any crime by any police force.

Not really the only concrete thing and hardly the most important thing to be honest, I would say that the only concrete thing is that Madeleine went missing for some reason, that is the only issue of any importance here as far as I can see, the McCanns, the abductor are all secondary to that, surely that cannot be denied?

 

[brit1981]

Yes, but until it is found what happened, i.e an abductor is found it is less likely madeleine will be found.

 

[Donjeta]

the dog has to be tested before it gets its license, it is not just a fee paying exercsie. The issue is that dogs from different police forces were being tested to different standards rather than one national standard i.e dogs from london had to meet different statndards to ones from south yorkshire.

here is what ACPO says about licensing "It will be for individual forces to determine the skills they require their dog and handler teams to possess." from page 24 of http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/uniformed/2011/201103UOPDogsMoG1.1.pdf

This is what you bolded.

The Government's National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) said specialist victim recovery dogs are not trained to approved standards, with no way of gauging their competence.

If there is no way of gauging their competence it means the testing to obtain the licence means nada and it's a waste of time.

 

[brit1981]

I think they mean national approved standards. But from what i have seen on the net there seems to be some disgreement between NPIA and ACPO. But no idea if that is true, just had a look on police forums and there is griping.

But as the UK bans the use of human tissue it is really difficult to access their competance. There was a stroy that when eddie found his one body with the SY police the officers themselves coudl smell it which obviously makes the use of the dog a bit pointless, but no idea if this is accurate or not.

 

[Clutchbag]

It's amusing how much effort is expended to trash cadaver dogs and in this case their handler with all sorts of lies and misinformation

now why would anyone want to do that? Answers on a postcard. I rest my case.

 

[brit1981]

It's amusing how much effort is expended to trash cadaver dogs and in this case their handler with all sorts of lies and misinformation

now why would anyone want to do that? Answers on a postcard. I rest my case.

What do you think are lies and misinformation?

 

[SapphireSteel]

The fact remains that the cadaver dogs were British dogs, brought in by the British police, who were the ones who first developed the evidence that the McCanns were involved in their daughters disappearance.

Continued rubbishing of the dogs and their work is by extention rubbishing the British Police and their work.

Mind you after seeing the hot mess they made of Tia Sharples and the Liverpool Stadium Collapse, perhaps they deserve to be ridiculed.