Police Training

Case study: Our training in action

Humberside Police took part in our National Badger Crime Awareness course in 2017.  Not long after, they were faced with a horrific case of badger baiting. Two of the dogs were left with serious injuries, one of which was even heavily pregnant.  Humberside Police responded and made 4 arrests at the scene.  Thanks to Humberside Police’ swift action, all of the men involved were found guilty and sentenced to the maximum term of six months in jail.
 
A Humberside Police Wildlife Crime Officer stated…

"In responding to the initial call made to the police, several members of staff attended the scene. Two of the officers had undertaken the National Wildlife Crime course with two of them having also completed the one-day national badger course. One member of staff Police Community Support Officer Steve Lynch was immediately able to identify the tunnel entrances, excavated spoil, and identify other signs such as well-defined runs definitive signs and that the structure the offenders were digging into as a badger sett.

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Through Steve’s knowledge he was able to highlight the evidence to other officers also attending and was able to show the need for the males to be arrested, and all evidence secured including the dogs present. 
 
He was instrumental in ensuring the area of the sett was treated as a crime scene and that any disturbance or interference should be undertaken only in respect of gathering evidence for the investigation as per our Class Licence, this was bearing in mind two terriers were still within the sett and there were of course concerns for their welfare.
 
Due to both Steve and PS Andrew Beadmans prior training they were pivotal in ensuring the relevant offences were identified from the outset and that the investigation was carried out accordingly.

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The story given by the offenders at the time could easily have been believed by officers who have had no training or knowledge of wildlife crime and allowed the males to either carry on or leave the scene as persons lawfully ratting with permission where their dogs had ran off and entered some rabbit holes."

 

Advanced Practitioners Course

Following the successes of the Police Training since 2017, in 2021 Badger Trust introduced a new  ‘Advanced Practitioner Course’  with an aim to deliver training to every police force in the skills required to identify the signs required to be evidenced into proving current use. It had been identified that investigations are failing due to the lack of knowledge and understand the key evidence required within in very tight time limitations. 

 

This course has been rolled out to all forces and we are now in a better position to understand. These police staff are regularly committing their own time to these investigations and seeing an improvement and understanding and we are seeing more investigations resulting in effective results and solutions. 

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This course is run on behalf of the UK Badger Priority Delivery Group in partnership with the RSPCA SOU, CPS and NE.

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Police training Q&A

Q: Why don't police pay for badger training themselves?

Police forces across the country have had their budgets slashed in recent years. Wildlife Crime Units are often one of the most underfunded units. While you can petition the government to increase police spending, this likely won't have an immediate effect.  Our training has been credited in recent success stories. The faster we can roll out this training to as many police forces as possible, the better we can protect our wildlife.  
 

Q: Why is badger training so important? 

Wildlife crime has remained a prominent issue facing badgers and causes a staggering number of badger deaths each year. Yet very few end up being brought to justice. Outdoor crime scenes are especially difficult. We aim to ensure that police officers arriving on the scene know how to identify a badger sett and evidence of badger crime.