CHESHIRE Police says a new addition to its team will revolutionise the way sexual offences are investigated.

The force and North Wales Police Alliance Dog Unit has welcomed Police Dog April following the completion of a six-week rigorous training programme.

After successfully qualifying as a sexual crime scene search dog, with the help of her handler PC Steve Gunn, PD April is now one of only three dogs in the UK to be trained to detect seminal fluid only, which will help put more sexual offenders behind bars.

PD April, a 15-month-old Golden Labrador, can now pinpoint tiny amounts of seminal fluid without being distracted by other scents.

Her nose is so sharp that she can detect as little as 0.016ml of semen, sometimes years after it has been deposited.

Within 36 hours of returning from their training, PC Gunn and PD April were put to the test operationally after being requested to assist CSI with the examination of a scene in Cheshire.

Chief inspector Simon Newell said: “This is an early example of how this pairing of PD April and PC Steve Gunn will be a huge asset, helping Cheshire to prosecute sexual predators and safeguard victims.

“It shows how the skills of the dogs and their handlers play a vitally important role during sexual offence investigations, in scenes where traditional methods would not work.

“The introduction of this specialist search dog capability provides exciting opportunities to demonstrate how we can contribute towards tackling force priorities”.

The Alliance Dog Unit, established in 2015, provides the capability to respond dynamically to incidents requiring police dog response across Cheshire and North Wales.  

PC Dean Allen added: “It is fantastic to welcome April to the team.

“Training as seminal fluid dogs has been extremely thorough to test and prove dogs’ ability so they can best assist CSI.

“In the last six weeks they have learnt to identify and search for that scent in numerous scenarios that we have set up for them.

“The result is we can catch sexual offenders that we may not have been able to otherwise due to the very difficult nature of some sexual offence scenes.

“The dogs can indicate the presence of seminal fluid in places traditional kits cannot detect it, and once they have identified the scent, that piece of material or vegetation can be sent away and the extracted DNA profiled, leading to more prosecutions and offenders behind bars.”