West Mercia Police uses empty boarding school to train sniffer dogs

Police dog handlers are using a former school to carry out training exercises.

West Mercia Police’s dog section is among the groups to hire out rooms at Malvern St James, a boarding school which closed earlier this year.

Victim and forensic detection dogs were put through their paces on Thursday (September 24).

A knife with blood on it was hidden in the school’s York Hall and the dogs – specially trained to find human remains, blood and other biological evidence at crime scenes – were brought in one-by-one to locate it.

This was a test the dogs – Dixon, Indy and Maggie – all completed in just a couple of minutes each.

PD Maggie was abandoned as a puppy so has been with the force since she was 12 weeks old.

Now four, she has been with handler PC Chloe Smith since she was six months old.

PC James Pilling, the handler for five-year-old PD Dixon, said dog handling was the reason he had joined the police.

He said the dogs also search for drowning victims on the river, by leaning over the side of a boat.

This can narrow a search area down to just two or three metres, saving valuable time for police diving teams.

Police dog instructor Steve Morrell said: “We only scratch the surface of what these dogs are capable of.”

He said the dogs do sometimes carry out searches as a team, which he said “looks like mayhem” but is “really cool and really efficient”.

PC Morrell said the harnesses worn by the dogs act as a uniform, helping the dogs differentiate between work and hometime.

Lisa Glover, who works at the school, said the collaboration was her husband’s idea as he is a retired police officer and knows the dog handlers are always looking for good training locations.

She said the school building is ideal because it offers a range of different environments for the dogs.

School staff say they are open to any ideas from groups wishing to use the site.