The three police diving units in Scotland, Grampian, Strathclyde and Central, all have 12-14 divers. It takes eight weeks full-time, with ongoing assessments and examinations plus HSE Diving at Work First Aid, irrespective of previously held qualifications and experience. Ensuring that we are all trained to the same standards can be very important in court. I do not doubt that the approaches to the police made by David Fuller-Shapcott 's club were warmly met. The only scenario where this could happen would be the immediate rescue of a person who had just fallen into water, if you happened to be on the scene with diving gear to hand.
Most police forces work closely with such organisations.
However, neither body has divers licensed to dive and search as outlined above - that's down to the police. It's time to fight back. No, it's the simple tank fill. Such second-class service reduces dive time and messes up planning. On a 12 litre tank, at 20m, that's five minutes' downtime lost.