Like the subversive blogger nottextusa.
Take this as a particularly egregarious example:
http://nottextusa.blogspot.com/2018/08/ ... lking.html
The document SYP didn't produce, but referred to, from the question I submitted was also from a Personal Development Review (PDR).AUG
15
Grimestalking
Yesterday, I posted an FOI request and response on the topic of the South Yorkshire Police sniffer dogs who went to PdL. Most of the questions centre around the dog Eddie.
This request was NOT made by Nick Townsend
Just to have it handy for reference, here is that request and response again:
I would like to request the following under the FOI Act:
1. Which cases has Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog been used in within the South Yorkshire Force area over the last five years? Please provide a breakdown for each year.
2. Which cases has Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog been used in outside the South Yorkshire Force Area over the last five years? Please provide a breakdown for each year.
3. What does the South Yorkshire constabulary charge for Eddie the sniffer dog’s services?
4. Please could you provide a breakdown of the fees and expenses charged for each case Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog has been deployed in outside the South Yorkshire area in the last three years?
5. To whom is money made payable for the services of Eddie the sniffer dog?
6. Who owns Eddie the sniffer dog?
7. What training did Eddie receive to assist him in his duties?
Exemptions Applied:
None
SYP Response:
1. Which cases has Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog been used in within the South Yorkshire Force area over the last five years?
Eddie, the specialist dog is no longer with South Yorkshire Police. He and his handler left the Force in August 2007. The information supplied therefore relates to his service between 2003 and 2007.
Information relating directly to the nature of each Victim Search Dog deployment, if made public could cause unnecessary distress to the persons and families connected with the deceased. However, we can provide the following details regarding Victim Search Dog deployments between 2003 and 2007:
As two teams working together: handler Ellis and dog Frankie, with handler Grime and dog Eddie have been deployed on twenty occasions, with the recovery of four bodies.
Working alone, Grime/Eddie have been deployed on seventeen occasions with the recovery of one body and Ellis/Frankie have been deployed on five occasions with the recovery of three bodies, this includes the recovery of two women in one grave.
2. Which cases has Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog been used in outside the South Yorkshire Force Area over the last five years? Please provide a breakdown for each year.
Out of the twenty occasions where the dog teams were deployed together, two deployments were in the South Yorkshire Police Force area and the remainder were out of the force.
All seventeen deployments for Grime/Eddie working alone were to external forces.
Two deployments for Ellis/Frankie were in the South Yorkshire Police Force area and the remaining three were to external forces.
3. What does the South Yorkshire constabulary charge for Eddie the sniffer dog’s services?
The daily charges for the deployment of Eddie were £700 per day Monday to Friday and £900 per day for weekly leave days and bank holidays. These charges have not changed over the last five years and are still applicable to date.
4. Please could you provide a breakdown of the fees and expenses charged for each case Eddie the Springer spaniel sniffer dog has been deployed in outside the South Yorkshire area in the last three years?
The breakdown for the fees and expenses charged for the deployment of Eddie the Springer Spaniel Victim Search Dog outside the force area are calculated as follows:
The figures are based on 2006-2007 costing:
Salary cost Police Constable: £41,900, 8 hour productive day £192.20
Deployment based on 16 hour day Mon to Friday more than 7 days notice
Cost for 8 hour working day
Cost for 8 hours overtime
NI on above
Cost dog for the day £10.52
Use of vehicle based on 300 miles
5% Admin fee
The total amounts to £837 but SYP would charge £700
Deployment based on 16 hour day Saturday or Sunday including Bank Holidays or less 7 days notice
Cost for 16 hours at double time
NI on above
Cost dog for the day £10.52
Use of vehicle based on 300 miles
5% Admin fee
The total amounts to £1035.50 but SYP would charge £900
5. To whom is money made payable for the services of Eddie the sniffer dog?
All monies received for the deployment of Eddie during his time with South Yorkshire Police were paid to South Yorkshire Police.
6. Who owns Eddie the sniffer dog?
Ownership of Eddie was transferred from South Yorkshire Police to his handler Martin Grime when he retired from the Force in 2007.
7. What training did Eddie receive to assist him in his duties?
When Eddie was with South Yorkshire Police he received training in line with the ACPO dog committee standards for specialist dog training. The training was and in relation to current dogs is 18 days per annum.
www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/do ... manual.doc
A couple of points to note:
This FOI response is still available on the SYP disclosure log (the reference number and the link are available on the previous post)
As previously mentioned, the FOI was not made by Townsend.
Despite the information in this response, Townsend frequently lies about a number of aspects.
I'll be listing these later
Now we'll move on to the FOI requests which were made by Townsend
With regard to your request in relation to:
"1. Can you confirm that the cadaver dog "Eddie", formerly a police dog under
dog handler and dog instructor Martin Grime, now retired from your force, was
sent to America to be trained on human cadavers and be upgraded to "enhanced"
victim recovery dog?
2. Can you confirm that South Yorkshire Police uses, or has used, an American
device for trapping scents, a "Scent Transfer Unit" or "STU100" in the
training of its cadaver dogs?"
RESPONSE
1. South Yorkshire Police holds information which would tend to confirm this part of your request. This information is contained within the anual Personal Development Review of retired PC GRIME for the year 2005/2006 and states at various points,
"(PC GRIMES) has deployed police dog 'Eddie' to train on human remains in the US. This training has been valuable as it is not possible to utilise human remains in the UK. A full report from the F.B.I. to document his training and operational deployments whilst in America remains pending"
"Deployments have been on a national scale and a recent visit to the F.B.I. in America has created some income generation potential in terms of training."
"Complete sponsored visit to FBI to educate on C.S.I. Dog capabilities - Achieved"
2. From enquiries I have made it would appear that South Yorkshire Police have not deployed or used a device known as a 'Scent Transfer Unit' or 'STU100' within Force either operationally or for evaluation. However the Force does hold information that would indicate that Mr GRIME, whilst serving with this Force IN 2006, did utilise such a device whilst engageD in another Force area. A section of a statement apparently made but not signed by Mr GRIME reads: -
" I developed the training of the E.V.R.D. to include the screening of scent pads taken from motor vehicles by a ST 100 Scent Tranference Unit.
The unit is designed in a two main-part design. The main body is a battery operated electrical device that draws air in at to the front and exhausts through the rear. Ther is no 're-circulation' of air within the unit. The second main part is a 'grilled' hood that fits to the main body. A sterile gauze pad is fitted into the hood. When operated the ST 100 draws air through the hood and the sterile gauze pad and exhausts through ports to the rear. 'Scent' is trapped in the gauze, which may then be stored for use within scent discrimination exercises.
The ST 100 unit is cleaned following use in such a manner that no residual scent is apparent. This is checked by control measures where the dog is allowed to search a given area where the S100 is secreted. Any response by the dog would suggest contamination. Tests have shown that the decontamination procedures are effective in this case with the dog NOT alerting to the device when completed.
Use of the ST100 is recommended when subject vehicles, property, clothing, premises are to be forensically protected from contamination by the dog, and for covert deployment. At all other times best practice would be for the dog to be given direct access.
Operational use of the STU 100 is in a developmental stage"
And the follow-up
Freedom of Information Request - Reference No:20110231
[Following a response to request 20110186]
Can I ask, did that FBI report described as 'pending' turn up?
RESPONSE
SYP did not receive a report, therefore there is `no information held'.
Again, a couple of points to make
Both these requests WERE made by Townsend.
He does not provide the initial request, just the response, nor does he provide any online link, screenshot or scan.
I have provided both the reference numbers, but it is worth noting that these requests and responses have both been removed from the STP disclosure log.
This is not an issue of dates, as the previous FOI request was two years earlier, but can still be located in the disclosure log.
I can confirm that Townsend's requests were available in the log at some point in the past, then removed
Okay - so that's the background. So how has Townsend used these replies?
Well, quite simply, he has misrepresented or told outright lies about their content to support his endless harassment of Martin Grime.
Here is a little example:
"Grime went to America in the New Year 2006 on a trip billed in advance as so that Keela could (sic) assist the FBI in two murder enquiries.
This is a 'deduction' made by Townsend on the basis of a newspaper report
Advanced publicity of that trip contained no reference to Eddie (then unknown outside police circles).
There is no indication that the trip where Eddie was taken for additional training is the same trip as the one referenced in the newspaper report, or that the lack of reference to Eddie means he wasn't included on that trip
Grime returned back to England (having made the trip, so far as I can gather, without dogs)
Townsend has NO information to support that claim, in fact quite the opposite, nor does he have access to that information
and in a PDR, pulled the wool over the eyes of some dope in a PDR that he had taken Eddie
Now - lets just pause there.
We will cover this in more detail later, but basically this is the situation
Townsend asked for confirmation that Eddie had been taken to America for additional training.
The response was that they held information which tended to confirm this.
Townsend's response was to claim that Grime's senior officer was ''a dope'' and that Grime had ''pulled the wool over their eyes''
He also claimed that Grime had lied about taking the dog to the states. Townsend's 'deduction' is on the following basis:
(who, then, would have been aged about 5 or 6, and just 18 months from retirement as a police dog) across to America for "enhanced" training on human remains.
He did not seek to confirm this deduction, or question the response he received. Nor did he apparently make any enquiries into how long a dog may continue to work in the private sector
Two FOI answers to questions submitted by me confirm that SYP have no record of any training on human remains in America (for Eddie).
That is simply a lie. It was confirmed to Townsend that the force DID hold information that Eddie had been taken to the states. What they were missing was a later report from the FBI which was outstanding.
So now seems a good time to list some of the lies Townsend has told where he has either misrepresented the FOI response, applied his own 'interpretation' or simply flat-out lied about it. These actions have given rise to a whole string of myths he has been propagating for years.
1. The lie - Martin Grime was working on a freelance basis in PdL
The truth - no he wasn't. As confirmed by both the FOI response and by Grime's own statement, he was still employed by South Yorkshire police at the time he went to PdL
2. The lie - that Martin Grime benefited financially from the dogs usage in PdL.
The truth - no, the FOI response confirmed that all receipts went to SYP. In addition, the rates quoted by SYP in their reply concur with the rates quoted in the PJ Files.
3. The lie - that Eddie was never trained on human tissues
The truth - this was one of the reasons for the visit of the dog to the USA. This is confirmed within Mr Grime's Personal development review.
4. The lie - that Mr Grime falsified parts of his PDR including falsifying a visit by the dog to the USA
The truth - not only is this nonsense, but it is also both libelous and offensive, including the reference to his senior officer as ''a dope''. Townsend is too stupid, presumably, to realise that such a trip would have to be signed off by a senior officer and would create a paper trail
He has used many variations of the above to try to discredit Mr Grime or applied his own tortuous thinking to arrive at the wrong conclusion. For example:
"Martin Grime was working freelance in PdL"
FOI says NO, but Townsend says "He wasn't in uniform; he was working two dogs etc"
None of which is relevant.
"He didn't take the dog to the USA"
FOI says, "Yes he did", but Townsend says "but he was getting old, we don't train dogs on humans etc"
None of which is relevant.
I even recall one incident where Townsend tried to pass the interaction off as follows :
"Can I ask, did that report described as pending turn up?"
"(SYP with a pensive frown) No, it didn't"
....until he was reminded that the interaction was on paper, not in person
Of course, as things stand there is no proof of the wording of those FOI responses as they have been deleted from the disclosure log. I wonder why that could be?
The point about PDRs is that they are self-written by the person who is their subject.
In other words, SYP have a document, written by Grime himself, in which Grime claims he took Eddie to America for "enhanced" training on human remains.
Which is why they worded their reply (sic) would tend to confirm when, had they said confirms, they would have been lying.
Pressed on whether the full report from America that would actually confirm this training, and described as pending, had been been received by SYP, the answer was clear and unequivocal. A report was not received and (sic) there is no information held.
Press reports from 2005-6 confirm Grime went to America on SYP business. The touted reason for the trip was so that Keela could "assist the FBI in two murder enquiries"
My understanding is that Grime went without dogs to discuss Keela and the Americans were politely underwhelmed by what Grime had to say. Although I didn't watch it, I gather Grime himself said something similar in the Netflix documentary.
Meanwhile, a separate FOI submitted by someone else, asked, simply, what training or preparation Eddie received to equip him for his duties as a police dog. The answer was that Eddie's training was in accordance with standard acpo guidelines, in England, and on dead pigs.
On the rebound from that unsuccessful trip, from which, shortly after, Grime's employment with SYP came to an end, Grime pulled the "enhanced" victim recovery dog rabbit out of the hat and went on to sell his snake oil salesman wares to the Portuguese for the Madeleine investigation; then the authorities in Jersey for the Haut de la Garenne debacle.
NotTextusa can bleat on all it wants about all the pointers to Grime being freelance in PdL being 'irrelevant'.
Plain facts are: SYP would have deployed two handlers with two dogs, just as the Met did in the second enquiry: dogs Tito and Muzzy with handlers Richards and Brake; and just as SYP did when Grime was working for them. He would either be deployed, alone with Eddie; or with another dog (Frankie) AND another handler (Ellis).
Grime avoided committing the crime of imitating a police officer when he was not one by not wearing his police officer uniform in PdL.
More narrowly, he might have avoided the same crime by not dating his profile, raising the possibility that when he wrote it, he was as he claims still a serving police officer.
