Sniffer dogs deployed to identify spiking drugs across Thames Valley proving successful
The trial is still ongoing, with police hoping to expand the scheme
A trial launched in December by Thames Valley Police to identify date-rape drugs has been proving successful.
Dogs have been trained and are continuously undergoing tests to sniff out drugs commonly used by criminals to spike victims.
"...hopefully we'll be able to extend this and potentially train dogs for other police forces across the country..."
The dogs have been deployed with plain clothed officers in the night time economy across Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.
Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley Police, Matthew Barber, said: "It's still in development, we do have dogs out there who are doing this and they're still being evaluated for how successful they're being."
"Certainly the early signs are really good and hopefully we'll be able to extend this and potentially train dogs for other police forces across the country because we believe this is a first."
"...really dangerous substances which are used to incapacitate people, often sadly for sexual purposes."
The types of drugs used can vary greatly, however the purpose of their usage remains mostly constant and motivated by criminal activity of a sexual nature.
Mr Barber said: "Some of those really dangerous substances which are used to incapacitate people, often sadly for sexual purposes."
"We need to make sure we're tackling some of these really nasty people."
"We need to remove that additional risk and we're working really closely with charities like Stamp Out Spiking who have been leading the campaign on that nationally."
The dogs are deployed with plain clothed officers outside of pubs and clubs, with intelligence shared with clothed officers who will then intervene if a threat is spotted.
"The dogs are a really important element of that but it's not just about the dogs it's about using especially trained officers to detect certain behaviours out in the night time economy", added Mr Barber.
Thames Valley Police is hoping to deploy and expand their scheme by training more dogs, to be deployed regularly across the three counties.