Today team members Steve Fletcher and Chris Greenhalgh journeyed to the Bowland Pennine MRT Base at Garstang, Lancashire, to attend a course organised by Nick Mattock, the MPSRO’s Training Coordinator (also a Lancashire Constabulary officer), with the course presented by Inspector Neil Sherry of Lancashire Constabulary.

The course has its origins in the week-long Missing Person Search Manager and Police Search Advisor courses, organised by Lancashire Constabulary and attended by Police Officers prior to them running any missing person search incidents.

In total 15 members from various teams attended, most of the teams were from the MPSRO region, but some students even journeyed to Garstang all the way from Penrith MRT!

The day long course involved the study of the theory of different classes missing persons, from missing fell walkers, children, vulnerable adults and those (usually elderly) people with dementia – covering what their likely behaviour is and what they are likely to do when they go missing.

The course also covered the Police investigation prior to any possible MR deployment, such as the checklist of actions taken by the Police in a high-risk missing from home search, which served to provide a solid background into how the Police would run a missing from home investigation.

A number of real life search scenarios were then discussed, most notable was the recent large scale search for a missing elderly female in the Wheelton area, which was attended by numerous teams and Police assets.

So our thanks to Nick Mattock and Neil Sherry for their considerable input into this course, and it was found to be highly informative.