TRAINEE police officers were put through their paces recently during a staged missing-persons search-and-rescue exercise on the south-west coast.
Parishioners in St Brelade may have noticed drones flying around as officers undertook scenario-based training in search of an imaginary member of the public.
Led by Police Constable James Mason, a States police trainer, the student officers – who have been in training for 12 months – combed areas around Noirmont and Beauport in search of an Islander “whose welfare was a concern after going missing from a hotel”.
“[The students] have already gotten quite a solid foundation, and this is just to increase the challenges and putting that knowledge to good use. So we try and do that with some scenario-based training,” PC Mason said.
“The officers had no knowledge of it going in, as if it was a real job.
“The idea behind it was to put particular emphasis on teamwork and collaborating with other parts of our organisation and assets outside of our organisation.”
Other response teams were also involved in the exercise, including the Channel Island Air Search.
PC Mason said: “The day started off with a concern for welfare for a resident in a hotel, so [officers] had to attend that premises, carry out a search and gather some intelligence about it.
“From that, they then had to try and identify where the person may have been or gone and that led to an open-area search and a vehicle search at Noirmont Point.”
PC Mason said that the exercise built on the skills they had previously been taught in the classroom.
He added that recreating real-life scenarios as part of officer training would ensure the States police offer a “better service to the public”.
“We don’t want the first time our officers are exposed to an instance like this to be in real life, with a brief understanding of what to do from a classroom.
“A lot of the thought processes [from scenario-based training] almost become instinctive, and it allows for a much quicker response in those instances, which gives a better service to the members of the public.”
PC Mason thanked the Channel Island Air Search team for their assistance during the exercise, adding that they were an “incredible asset” to have in searches for missing or vulnerable people.
