Newly trained dogs will target sex offenders

Two dogs trained by Nottinghamshire Police will soon be helping to put sex offenders behind bars.

Labradors Ebony and Hazy have recently completed six weeks of specialist training to detect seminal fluid.

The newly accredited pair are two of only a handful of such animals in the UK and will soon begin their working lives serving police forces across the country.

The dogs have been trained exclusively to detect seminal fluid and are capable of sniffing out microscopic samples months and even years after they are deposited.

DNA profiles can then be obtained and used as evidence against criminal suspects.

PC Dean Allen, lead trainer at Nottinghamshire Police, is known across the country for this expertise and has previously trained most of the other semen specific detection dogs working in the UK.

He said:

“Dogs really are remarkable animals and can trained in the same way to detect almost anything we want them to.

“Ebony and Hazy have been a real pleasure to work with over the last six weeks and I know they will play a very significant role in getting justice for victims.

“They are now capable of detecting even the smallest trace amounts and will find evidence that may previously have been missed with other detection methods.

“Ultimately these dogs will be used in future to bring some of the very worst offenders to justice, and it’s a great feeling for us to play a part in that with our training.”

Nottinghamshire Police has previously used evidence gathered by dogs to bring several serious sex offenders to justice.

These include a man who was jailed for 24 years in 2021 for offences committed against teenage girls many years before.

One of the key pieces of evidence against him was a semen deposit recovered in a bedroom that helped to prove the account of one of his victims.

Detective Chief Inspector Jo Elbourn, who has many years’ experience in investigating sexual offences, said:

“Evidence gathered by these animals can really make all the difference in a rape or sexual assault investigation – particularly when suspects deny that sexual activity has taken place.

“By using DNA evidence detected by dogs, we can prove they are lying about the fundamentals of an investigation and build our case from there.”