Thames Valley Police could be first police force in the world to deploy dogs that identify date rape drugs

Thames Valley Police (TVP) could be the first police force in the world to attempt to deploy police dogs that identify date rape drugs.

The force is currently coming to the end of a trial where it is training a group of its talented animals to identify drugs - such as Rohypnol, GHB and GBL - that are used by people who carry out spiking in order to rape or sexually assault someone.

TVP hopes that the trial will be a successful one, and that its success would allow officers to deploy the dogs at the entrances to music festivals and nightclubs to identify the harmful substances and those who intend to use them before they have the chance to do so.

TVP chief constable Jason Hogg said: “We think we’re the first police force in the world to train our dogs to identify date rape drugs used for spiking.

“The idea there is that outside nightclubs or at festivals, we can put those passive dogs where people are coming in to identify the drugs.

“We are just finishing the trial of that and it is going really well.”

TVP had increased the deployment of their police dog section 10 per cent over the last year, and Mr Hogg said that was due to the animals being trained to identify more and more objects every single year.

He said: “We have quite a large dog section here and we have a very effective dog breeding programme as well.

“We are using our dogs to do more and more things, whether that be finding cash, looking for explosives.

“We are being more proactive in how we can use our dogs who are amazing animals and are very happy dogs who love to come and work here with us.”