New brand of ‘woof’ justice coming to Lincolnshire with county set for first digital detection dog

Ten-month-old Flurry has started an intensive training course to teach him how to sniff out digital storage devices.

The springer spaniel will be the first Lincolnshire Police dog trained to detect such equipment.

He will assist officers at crime scenes and during warrants by leading them to hidden mobile phones, computers, hard drives, satellite navigate devices, memory cards, and sim cards.

Superintendent Paul Timmins said: “Having the ability to search for digital media devices is a massive bonus for us in Lincolnshire. We are adapting to the criminal world around us.

“Digital detection dogs are fantastic and keep us at the cutting edge of preventing and detecting crime.

“Flurry will assist with any relevant warrants, such as warrants carried out in relation to child exploitation and child sex offences, along with assisting cybercrime, cconomic crime and county lines investigations.”

Digital detection dogs were introduced by the FBI in America.

The first UK police force to use them was Devon and Cornwall, followed by Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and now Lincolnshire.

Asst chief constable Kerrin Wilson said: “As criminals become more digitally enhanced we needed to develop a system to tackle this issue across the force.

“The use of digital media dogs is still fairly new across the country, but there are some forces already using them. The forces that have been using these dogs have reported success with them locating sim cards and digital media storage hidden in walls and underneath the floors.

“We are in the process of training Flurry. This training course lasts around 10 weeks and is similar to training a dog to find drugs. I am really excited to see how Flurry does once he is fully operational. I am sure he will be a fantastic enhancement to our Dog Section.”