Original subtitles

Police Scotland's Highlands and Islands division

is Britain's biggest beat.

The geographical scope of where we police is phenomenal.

12,000 square miles of glens, islands,

deep lochs and towering mountains.

We do have some of the most dangerous terrain.

Where the hell is he? Where is he?

Even if you were a very good swimmer,

you're not coming out of there.

Patrolling this vast, wild landscape...

There are some vehicles out there,

but I don't think they're going to be...

..and answering emergency calls in the wilderness...

..the Highland cops go above and beyond to combat crime...

Clearly quite a bit of blood.

Suspicious death, same as you would get anywhere else.

..and keep people safe.

Leave me alone!

We will attend to everybody's worst day.

We need to try and make sure you're OK.

Here, traditional rural policing...

We've had a report of a satellite-tagged golden eagle

that's gone offline.

It shouts out to me that it's been killed.

..meet state-of-the-art crime-fighting.

Top drawer, there's a lot of rocks, a lot of cash.

This is cocaine, right?

If it turns blue, then it is cocaine there. Yep.

This series goes inside the UK's most unique police force...

One minute, you're dealing with an avalanche...

Come on! ..and the next, you've got a lively Lab.

..to find out what it takes to patrol the beat...

It is a family. You are working with your brothers and sisters.

..and keep the peace... Police!

..in some of the most beautiful and challenging places in Britain.

The Highland Police Division isn't just the largest in the UK,

it's by far the most geographically challenging,

taking in far-flung islands battered by Atlantic storms

and huge mountain ranges, like the famous and forbidding Glencoe.

Policing Glencoe is unique.

It's got great scenery, but the mountains are the big draw.

It's quite hard to describe

because every time you look at it, it's different.

Different weather, different colours.

It's immense.

It's also dangerous.

In the past decade, at least seven people

have lost their lives in these hills.

Today Stephen has an urgent call about someone who could be at risk -

a solo hill walker in his 50s.

He should have been back last night, but he didn't return to his car,

and he isn't answering his phone.

Now a full-scale Mountain Rescue operation is getting under way.

The hypothesis is, at the moment, that he's probably injured

and needing assistance.

As time goes on, you get even more worried

because at the moment, the temperatures are good,

conditions are good...

If it was the winter, you'd be desperately worried at this point,

and you'd be thinking the worst,

and thinking that they're more than likely deceased.

The missing person is an experienced walker,

but he's lost in 200 square miles of wilderness.

Finding him will be a daunting task.

A team of Mountain Rescue volunteers is already out looking for him.

Stephen is on his way to oversee the operation.

My role would be to co-ordinate the Mountain Rescue teams,

trying to get the information for them,

to narrow down their search for them,

to try and locate that missing person as fast as we possibly can.

To focus the search,

the team need to work out the walker's route.

At the moment, they don't know where he was heading,

but Stephen does have a promising lead -

text messages the missing man sent to his partner

before he disappeared.

So yesterday evening was the last message that we got,

basically saying that he was at a point where the descent wasn't good,

at "water thing."

We haven't identified what "water thing" is yet.

"Might go for it. Battery not good.

"Glencoe is looking close."

Immediately followed by a second message,

"I can see ski station. I should be able to walk to car."

That's the last message we had, about eight o'clock last night.

That's positive in itself that he's been alive and well at that point,

enough to be able to text and say he can get back to his car.

So it's looking good from that point of view,

but the lack of contact since

suggests either his phone's run out of battery,

or he's come to some harm that he can't use his phone.

Based on the messages, the search is focusing on areas

with a view of the ski centre.

But with every passing hour, concern for the walker is mounting.

A Coastguard helicopter has now arrived

to assist the teams on the ground.

Rescue 199. Glencoe, Brian.

We have people in Finglen beyond now searching all that side

of the west side of Creise now.

Yeah. OK. We've got two open MR

who could possibly do with a lift from our location.

And it would be good to drop them off on the side of Creise.

The helicopter is ferrying ground search teams high into the hills

and visually scanning the landscape.

Now they think they've spotted something.

Rescue 199. Glencoe, Brian.

That's all received. Over.

Bated breath.

Fingers crossed. Mm.

I'm not sure what it is that the team are seeing

because the radio comms aren't very good.

So we can't actually get direct contact

with the team that have seen it.

Go ahead.

Helicopters are very, very helpful for finding people that are alive

that can signal the helicopter.

Unfortunately, if it's somebody that's passed away on the hill,

sometimes it's quite difficult for them to see because they blend into the rocks

or they're hidden behind things that they can't see from above.

And in today's hot weather, the helicopter's thermal imaging kit,

which can usually spot a warm body on the landscape,

will also struggle to find the walker.

The human body kind of blends in with the ground at that point,

so it's very difficult for them to search for a human person

on a warm day.

A lot of it is with the naked eye for the observer

in the back of the helicopter, searching.

After a few more tense moments,

the helicopter crew manages to get a closer look

and reports what they have found.

Oh, in fact, hang on.

It seems like it's another member of Mountain Rescue, so...

Yeah.

False alarm.

The figure they spotted was one of their own team.

OK. That's copied. Thanks.

With the ground search no closer to finding the missing man,

Stephen needs to pursue every other possible lead.

The missing person's car is parked in the car park for the ski centre.

He's still not returned to it, unfortunately.

So now the plan is to go down to the car and get it uplifted

so that it can be searched properly.

When the recovery agent arrives,

we'll get them to break into it for us.

Have a quick search in the car park,

just in case there's anything that might help the search.

Quite often when people go missing in the mountains in Glencoe,

they've driven there, and in their car

there could be a treasure trove of information for us.

Sometimes they'll leave a route plan in the car

that we can look at and say, "Oh, we've got a cracking route plan.

"We'll get someone to walk that and hopefully we'll find him."

Well played, that man.

At the moment, not a lot to go on at all, no.

I don't think so.

All the stuff that he would need

when he comes back down off the hill,

but nothing that he should have on the hill.

So looks like probably

he's got all the kit that he needs on the hill

and he was planning on coming back and hasn't been back yet,

I would say.

With the car providing no clues and the text messages inconclusive,

at the end of day one,

the team is no closer to finding the missing man,

and concern is increasing by the hour.

Tomorrow, the operation will be scaled up,

with extra volunteers and more police.

They need to do whatever they can to find him

before it's too late.

100 miles north-west of Glencoe lie the Outer Hebrides,

a 130-mile long group of islands

with a population of around 26,000

and its own team of detectives.

My name is Louise Henderson.

I work in the criminal investigation department in Stornoway.

I cover the whole of the Western Isles.

That includes Lewis and Harris,

down through the Uists and all the way to Barra.

It's about 800 square miles.

It's a massive rural area.

You could be working anywhere.

In this huge beat, investigating serious crimes

can be a real challenge.

Today, Louise is being called to a possible attempted murder.

She needs to examine the crime scene.

But it's on South Uist, 80 miles and one ferry away from base.

The pressure's on.

We have to get there as quick as we can

because if we don't, then scenes can become contaminated,

or we could lose evidence,

or if it's something where we're looking to get

DNA samples and things, they're not going to last forever.

So the sooner we can get there,

the sooner we can get what we need for the inquiry.

Hiya. We're Henderson, we're with them too.

With them as well? What the hell's going on? I know.

CID's different here just because of the vast area that we cover.

So we don't have anybody else that we can rely on.

There's no other units to come. It is just us.

The victim was found alone in his house yesterday.

He had been attacked and suffered life-threatening injuries.

He was transferred to hospital by air ambulance

because he was fitting, and that was a result of him

having the head injury.

He went into peri-arrest.

It was almost full cardiac arrest.

And this was a result of injuries that he received to the head.

On the way to a violent assault,

we're thinking about the crime scene,

thinking about what samples we can take, taking photographs,

and does it match up with what the victim's told us?

But in this case, the victim is too badly injured to speak

to the police, and nobody else saw the attack.

A suspect who was spotted near the house has been arrested,

but he denies being involved.

If the victim doesn't recover,

the case could rely on evidence found at the scene.

Finally, four hours after leaving Stornoway,

Louise arrives at the house.

It's her job to record it exactly as it was found.

But the forensic team is waiting to seize objects for DNA testing,

so she needs to work fast.

The whole area will get photographed,

but if there's anything particular that they want photographed,

then I'll take extra photographs and zoom in so that it's all documented.

Clearly quite a bit of blood.

Louise's colleague, Ian Morrison,

has already done an initial walk-through.

But the sort of key points for me are,

you see the blood on the floor in front of the chair?

That extends through into the kitchen.

OK, so just follow the blood through? Follow the blood through.

Blood drops going through towards the sink.

And in the sink, there's a green top,

and that's contaminated with blood as well. Right, OK.

If you could capture all that first.

We'll leave you to do that before we start recovering any items.

You can see a pattern there. Yeah.

When you walk into a scene, you do get a good idea of what's happened

from where the main incident's taken place.

There usually will be droplets of blood or things disturbed,

moved over, things left that shouldn't be there.

You can see from the main area

to maybe where somebody's left the locus,

if there's a trail of anything that follows them out the door.

So we can start to put a picture together.

Later on, when we look back through the photos,

we're able to explain what everything is

and where it was when we seen it.

And it's only once that's completed that we would start taking swabs,

samples of bed staining, blood that we find.

With the scene photographed,

the team can start gathering the evidence.

The question is, if the victim doesn't wake up

and the suspect denies the assault,

will anything they find reveal what really happened?

In Glencoe,

the search for the missing hill walker is entering day two.

It's 36 hours since he last texted his partner.

If he's out here, he has spent two nights

exposed to the elements, alone.

Where were you yesterday?

Here. We pretty much covered this bit in here.

And the visibility was great. You could see down all the gullies.

I'll look at the comms data with him and we'll... Yeah.

Overnight, the operation has been scaled up.

There are now more than 40 mountain rescue volunteers on the team,

and the Police Mountain Rescue unit has also arrived.

Their leader is Inspector Matt Smith.

The Mountain Rescue team's main cause for being called out

are people being lost or people being injured.

And that happens on an almost daily basis in the Highlands and Islands.

But one of the main challenges in Glencoe is that

everything you choose to walk up is pretty steep from the outset.

From the minute you set off from the car park,

you're probably going to be going straight uphill.

So before you do that, you need to be fit enough

and you need to have the experience and ability

to cope with what those mountains are going to throw at you.

Working alongside Matt today is Andy Nelson,

leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue.

In an operation like this, his local knowledge is invaluable.

The first thing to do will be to get probably the police team

into the further-away location,

and then we'll allocate the chopper to search or lift people around

as necessary during the day.

Thank you.

Text messages the walker sent to his partner

give clues about his route.

He thought he could see the ski centre,

so the search is focusing on places near there.

He also mentioned a "water thing," but it's not clear what that means.

So anywhere high here and the ski tower

would be completely visible from any of this bit of ridgeline.

I mean, I imagine it was walked yesterday,

but he's dressed in green, brown and black.

Wearing those colours in this vast landscape,

the walker will be hard to spot,

and the clock is ticking.

As a search coordinator,

you're under an awful lot of pressure.

There's somebody out there on the mountains

having the worst day of their life,

or potentially already passed away.

If that's the case, you've got a family at home

and often Mountain Rescue teams are the last hope for families.

If they're missing in the mountains,

there's nobody else that's going to find them.

Mountain Rescue volunteer Ewen Lawrie, known as Spit,

is searching a rugged area to the west of the ski centre.

I'm just looking for something that just stands out

as slightly different and doesn't look quite right.

So it's not necessarily a full person you're looking for.

It's just... Might be something sticking up from below,

behind a tussock or something.

And bolstering his binoculars is a more high-tech piece of kit.

Searching all the usual spots yesterday, you know,

the bits you would expect people to be, but...

..when it comes to today,

it's all the really, really awkward wee bits

that you wouldn't normally get people walking

that you're starting to go through.

Some gullies can take a whole day to search properly, you know?

And you cover probably 10 or 20 times

more ground with the wee drone.

INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER

As the helicopter approaches,

Spit must clear the airspace and continue from the ground.

But elsewhere on the hill, there's been a breakthrough.

Aye, OK. That's all copied. Over.

I think when you find personal property

belonging to someone that's missing, it helps the inquiry,

because depending on the item, depending where it's left,

we can start to make deductions about what may have happened.

So if a walker goes missing and you find their rucksack,

that's a massive thing for us, because the rucksack

tends to be the one thing that the person's carrying

that has all their personal possessions.

A person could have taken their rucksack off

for any number of reasons.

So whilst it helps redirect or focus search,

it doesn't necessarily mean that there's bad news at the end of that.

It's not yet known if the rucksack is the missing walker's.

This could be a crucial new lead,

but the spot where it was found

doesn't seem to match the route described in his texts.

So if it turns out to be him,

he's come down the wrong side of the hill,

but there is actually harvesters working down there

just now in the forestry, with a lot of bright lights at night,

and you could quite easily mistake that for the ski centre.

But it is a 180 degree, probably, compass error.

But if he has tried to come down that way,

he was describing a water feature,

or a "water thing," his exact words were,

and that would maybe tie in

because there's a new hydro scheme

in the Allt a Chaorunn burn, so, um...

..it could all be painting the right picture

for turning out to be him.

If this is the missing man's rucksack,

it could show that he made a tragic error on his route.

But it's important not to jump to conclusions.

It can become very easy to make an assumption the item

belongs to the person you're looking for,

and lose focus in the search or change search activity too quickly,

when actually you haven't identified that the item belongs to them.

You got the rucksack, have you?

I have, yeah.

Brilliant. Thank you very much.

With the rucksack recovered,

the team urgently needs to find out whose it is.

If it is the missing walker's, this could be a game-changer.

If not, the search will be back to square one.

It looks as though there's been two people drinking in the living room.

In South Uist, detectives are searching the scene of an assault.

The victim, who lives here, is too badly hurt to give a statement,

so the evidence from here could be crucial

to getting justice for the victim.

There's various number of cans of beer on the floor

within the living room.

There's blood throughout the living room, drops on the floor,

and there's a more concentrated area of blood

in front of the living room window.

That suggests that somebody's been on the floor.

They were bleeding heavily for a period of time.

The blood could provide clues about how the assault played out.

Also key will be anything they find that can be linked to the suspect.

We're looking for things that have been left,

things that have been damaged...

..the main sort of point of attack, if it's been an assault,

and just gather information from what we see.

Spectacles. Spectacles.

Blue legs.

Windowsill, living room? Yeah.

If we find anything in an address that we think could be used

by a suspect or the victim, we would seize that.

We take these because DNA samples can be taken from them,

or fingerprints,

and that just helps put an accused person at the scene.

Is that a T-shirt?

No, it's a bloodstained hand towel.

Bloodstained hand towel.

The blood on the towel could be the victim's or the suspect's.

It will have to be tested.

Then Ian spots something else that seems out of place.

With no sign the victim is a smoker,

it's possible these cigarette ends were left by the suspect.

This could prove key in linking him to the scene.

There's opportunities for getting trace evidence for the suspect.

Cigarette ends that we've recovered from the floor,

good source of DNA, potentially.

So we might be able to do forensic work on that.

We think that the bulk of the blood that's in there

belongs to the victim.

We'll take swabs of various key points

that I've identified in the room.

It's a slow process.

After several hours

carefully gathering everything that could be significant,

the team can make the journey back to Stornoway.

Several hours later, back at base, they get word of a breakthrough.

The victim, who is in hospital, has now given a statement

and confirmed the suspect is the person who assaulted him.

Ian can now compare his story with what they found at the scene.

I've had a read through the statement, and initial views

are that what the witness is saying in his statement

very much matches what we're seeing at the scene.

It appears that he sat in a chair for some time, leaning over,

bleeding heavily in the same place.

So he's been in that sat position,

causing that pooling effect on the floor.

And he also speaks to the accused having been knocking over furniture

within the house and acting aggressively.

The suspect has now been charged with assault.

If he pleads not guilty,

the evidence from the scene will be vital for the prosecution.

The living room area was very heavily bloodstained.

Bloodstained towels and clothing were left behind.

So we take swabs of the blood droplets,

because if we ask the suspect, or it's put to him, you know,

"Were you at that address? Did you assault him?"

"No, I wasn't even there."

If we've got his DNA inside the house,

we can prove that he's been in the house.

The photos that we take, they are shown to a jury in a case

and asked to talk about what's in the photograph,

explain that to the jury so that they can get a better understanding.

And having the photos, it shows the scene to them.

It helps them get a clearer picture of what's happened.

You want to have everything covered so that

somebody isn't going to get off with such a serious assault like that.

Items like the cigarette and the bloodstained hand towel

can now be sent for forensic testing.

If DNA confirms the suspect was at the scene,

that will be invaluable evidence at the trial.

Hopefully, at the end of the day, justice will be done.

Policing island communities where backup can be far away

means the cops here need to be ready for anything,

from serious assaults to more everyday issues.

South of Stornoway lies perhaps

the most famous Scottish island of all - Skye,

where this morning, Sergeant Gordon Gray

is on his way to deal with a spot of local bother.

It's a neighbour dispute.

It's been dragging on for a little bit.

It's two different sort of family groups upon some croft land.

One family, I think, are building a house

and they're just... Communication's kind of broken down now.

A croft is a Highland smallholding

where people keep livestock and grow vegetables.

Many families trace their connection to a croft back centuries.

But today, with many young people leaving

and outsiders coming in and buying crofts,

friction between neighbours is not unheard of.

Today, one side is reporting that

a tractor has knocked a branch on a tree

and obstructed an entrance to a gate.

By itself, it's relatively minor, but all the different incidents

put together are causing issues for people.

So I'm just going to go and see what we can do.

People get quite protective over

their little patch of property, don't they?

You get people moving in from down south, buy a house

and don't quite understand why, you know, a farmer or a crofter

is moving his sheep through the corner of their plot.

One family here is the McKenzies, who've had crofts here for,

I don't know, generations, maybe.

And there's another family who have been here not quite so long.

So the McKenzies are building a house on their croft

further down that track, so that's their access.

And that's what started, I think, some issues.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Looks like a freshly broken branch.

I know there's been issues with the McKenzies and yourselves,

a number of things that have gone on. Yeah.

But today you phoned up about

some access and a broken branch or something.

The caller claims his neighbour snapped a branch with his tractor

and deliberately left it blocking the track,

and that he has CCTV footage to prove it.

Have you spoken to Mr McKenzie about it?

Yeah. OK, we'll have a word with them.

Thank you. All right. I appreciate it.

OK. All right. Thanks very much.

It seems to be relatively minor.

So we'll just go and speak to Mr McKenzie and hopefully...

..smooth things over, you know?

I've never spoken to Mr McKenzie Senior, just his son.

So I don't know what kind of reception we'll get. Hopefully...

..reasonable.

Is it Roddy? It is, aye.

How are you doing?

It's just the chap down at the croft has phoned us today

to say that you might have knocked a branch

with the forks in the tractor across the track.

Aye.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Aye, he said that, and he said he moved it.

Aye, aye.

All right.

I think the forks have maybe hit a branch

as you've driven the tractor onto the croft

and broke a branch off and blocked the track for, you know...

Aye.

Well, there was a broken branch at the side and there's a wee camera

and it shows you driving the tractor

and it looks like you've just scuffed the trees

and you've maybe knocked the branch off.

Right, OK.

It's just one of these things, you know?

And it's added on to the other problems and tensions,

it becomes a big thing to them in the same way...

Aye.

Listen, who does?

THEY LAUGH

Right, OK. We'll leave you to it.

All right. Take it easy.

OK.

Mr McKenzie is a nice old chap.

But you can tell by his attitude,

this kind of dispute has got his dander up

and there's a number of issues going on,

but as far as the branch is concerned, it's really minor.

He's not been aware of it, and that's kind of the end of that.

When you go to a dispute, I think you learn in the police

not to jump in and take sides.

You have to listen to all parties.

Quite often the truth is in the middle somewhere.

So you've just got to pick your way through some of the emotion

and find out what's actually going on.

And a lot of the time, they just need a bit of a notional cuddle,

or led by the hand, or held by the hand

and helped through this moment of upset that they're going through.

You know, you've just got to give them a chance

to get things off their chest.

In Glencoe, on day two of the search for the missing hill walker,

there's been a potential major breakthrough.

One of the groups out searching has found a rucksack.

Now, that sounds a really positive thing,

but you wouldn't believe, actually,

the amount of rucksacks that do get left in mountains across Scotland.

We get reports of that all the time.

There's nothing identifiable in it that specifically states it is his,

but it's a good starting point.

The rucksack was found at the bottom of a steep gully.

The team needs to know whether it belongs to the walker

to help narrow the search.

With the weather closing in,

acting Sergeant Stephen Cooper calls the walker's partner.

Just to give you an update at the moment.

So the teams are still out searching.

They're spreading the search far and wide now.

We're just looking to drill down a bit more into what he was carrying.

You said he had a rucksack, is that right?

What kind of rucksack would it have been? Do you know a make?

That's OK.

Unable to ID the rucksack, the man's partner suggests Stephen calls

a hill-walking friend who might be able to help.

Yeah, that would be handy.

The families are always at the forefront of your mind.

And when a search has already gone into second or third day,

I can't really imagine what they go through.

It's Stephen Cooper from the police at Glencoe.

Hi. Would you have any idea what kind of rucksack or anything

it would be that he would usually use?

A large Osprey rucksack.

Would he have a mat for sitting on?

Does he usually take something like that with him?

Yeah. He should have a... OK.

And is it a folding one, is it?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Folds into three, I believe.

Do you have any pictures of him on the hill at all?

Yeah, I've quite a lot, yeah.

OK. It'd be helpful to see some of them at some point. Yeah, sure.

Once the photos come through,

Matt and Stephen can compare them with the rucksack found on the hill.

Feel free to hold it yourself.

So the first one.

There's the rucksack, very clearly.

Yeah. It's got a Talon 44 with that distinctive marking down the side.

That zip, again, the detailing is the same,

but, you know, to the level that that draw pull is worn... Oh, yeah.

Yeah. ..which is really interesting.

Blue T-shirt, blue T-shirt and...

..the sit mat is as the same make and model.

So... Right. So it's his bag?

Yeah, it's his bag.

It's just whether he's anywhere near it

or whether he's dropped it and gone.

The rucksack is now vital evidence for the inquiry.

Before it was picked up, photos were taken of it

at the spot where it was found.

But there's no...

So all the grass around it, nothing's been flattened.

So there's not been anybody sitting there with the rucksack.

But where the hell is he?

Did he get injured?

Ditch his rucksack and crawl for a bit?

Where is he?

We need to divert search resources,

as many as we can, into that area now.

The difficulty for us is that the rucksack belonging to him

being in that area doesn't mean he's there now.

It could have fallen off a crag when he'd stopped for any reason,

and he could have moved somewhere else.

But it's good information for us.

It's as good as we've got, and it allows us to refocus search.

But there's still no sign of the walker

near where the rucksack was found.

The hope that it might lead the team to him is fading fast,

and soon the search will be called off till tomorrow.

The challenge for us will be if we

don't get a positive find in the next couple of hours.

The family are now aware that we've found an item

that we believe to belong to him.

It's not a nice feeling as search managers,

knowing that potentially, we're close,

but we've just not got a result.

With darkness falling,

there's no choice but to bring the teams in off the hill.

Yeah, Mark, it's Matt. I'm at Glencoe Control. Go ahead.

I think just wrap it up there.

Yes, yes, Mark. If you can safely make your way off the hill that way,

that would be fine.

Despite the find of the rucksack,

they are no closer to finding the missing man.

Tomorrow, the search may need to be scaled back.

The weather is getting worse.

The helicopter has been recalled to base

and the walker is still missing in the mountains.

No search is ever over, but you must get to a stage

where you inform the family

there's probably very little else you can do.

It's very difficult to have that conversation

and say the volunteers have got to go back to work.

You know, they've maybe been searching

for day after day after day.

You have the personal pride as well, as a mountain rescuer,

that you want to bring that person home.

And there's that element of maybe self-doubt -

you've not searched an area you should have,

that you've maybe missed the person.

And, yeah, they're just not easy discussions to have.

170 miles north of mainland Scotland,

halfway to Norway, lies Shetland.

100 windswept islands with a population of 23,000,

this is N division's most far-flung beat.

For the cops that live and work here,

it's a policing challenge like no other.

Here, we're everything.

We are the family protection unit, we are the sexual offences unit,

we are public order, we are firearms officers.

Everything is on you because you don't have these units at hand.

You're 14 hours away on the ferry from the mainland,

so if something happens, it's over to you to deal with.

From their HQ in Lerwick, the Shetland Police Force

covers more than 500 square miles across land and water.

On a typical shift, this huge area

will be policed by a handful of officers.

Tonight, there's a planned operation.

Sergeant David Carmichael gives the briefing.

We've got a wee job on this evening.

A male that's well-known to us.

This is a racially motivated incident which took place

in Boots Chemists in Lerwick.

He's made an inappropriate comment

on two occasions to one of the staff members,

and he's acting in an intimidating manner towards the staff.

And they've got fed up with it and they've actually phoned us.

Hate crimes on Shetland,

I don't really think it's much different from anywhere else.

The community are very good at supporting the police.

It's not acceptable.

We really need to stamp things like that out.

Our intention for this evening is to effect a safe arrest.

The last intelligence log that we've got on him

was on the 27th of December.

He was injecting drugs, all right?

So we need to be mindful of that.

We need to be mindful that he could have needles on him

or in the property,

and we certainly don't want a needle stick injury.

His mental state, he has got learning difficulties.

As far as I'm aware, there's not a diagnosis in place for him.

From speaking to him before and dealing with him,

he can be very personable.

But then again, if he takes it into his heid

that he doesn't want to come with us,

that's going to cause a problem for us.

He is also known to keep knives and weapons behind his doors.

Now, I know this from first-hand experience

because I was in a house he's had before.

He invited us in, no problem at all,

and there was a knife and a golf club sitting just behind the door.

That's why we are looking to get him out of the door, Jason.

As soon as we can, "Out you come, let's have a chat."

And then we'll get him arrested and get him back down here.

Right. Let's get our stuff and we'll head off, then.

Thanks, guys.

Shetland might seem a land apart,

but it has its share of social problems.

As in other parts of the UK, the police here are seeing

an increase in incidents related to mental health.

Tonight's job is one of them.

I've dealt with this man before.

He's got a history of drug taking and alcohol abuse.

He can be very unpredictable because of his mental health.

If you're en route to him, it's going through your head,

you're having to think to yourself, "Well, I need to keep myself safe,

"I need to keep the troops safe, and I also need to keep him safe."

I don't foresee any issues with him, but you just never know.

Knowing the suspect's history,

the police are taking no chances.

Four officers in two vehicles

are deployed to the suspect's house.

Go on, just stay in my line of sight there, mate, so I can see you.

Can you see him at the window?

Curtains drawn?

Come to the door, man.

BLEEP, come to the door! He's in.

Sorry?

BLEEP, can you come to the door a second till we speak to you?

All right, Jason?

Refusing to come out the door, shouting for a warrant, so...

OK. We'll keep going.

BLEEP, I need to speak to you, man. You need to open the door.

We're not going anywhere, BLEEP. Come on.

KNOCKING

Is he coming?

BLEEP, we see you at the door.

Just open the door and speak to us, man.

Just open the door and come and speak to us.

Go and get your warrant and come back, all right?

All I want to do is speak to you.

I don't need a warrant to come and speak to you.

You need a warrant to speak to people.

No, I don't. Yeah, you do. I'm just coming to speak to you.

I'm not having anybody in this house.

Right, well step outside, then.

A lot of hassle I've had in this house.

I'm not letting anybody past my doorway.

Nobody's going to give you hassle. Go and get your warrant.

BLEEP, you're now getting arrested.

You're now under arrest, you don't need to say anything.

Anything you do say... For doing what?

..may be used against you.

Do you understand that, BLEEP? I do, yeah. Right.

You're now under arrest. Your liberty is taken from you.

You need to step out or we're coming in.

I'll speak to you. ..I'll let you past the doorway.

No, you're now under arrest, OK? Go get your warrant.

You're under arrest, son.

Get back through the door! Get back through the door!

Chill out.

What have I done wrong? Listen, listen. Over here!

I'll speak to you, son.

All right.

For me as a supervisor,

it always comes back to safety first.

There's an allegation being made against you.

Listen to me.

Sh. Listen to me.

We don't want to agitate him.

Got to take you down to the office.

We want to make sure that the environment is as safe

as it possibly can be.

But it's very, very difficult when you know there's a potential

that he might have a weapon behind the door

or sitting right next to him.

I've just told you, BLEEP.

I'll get you searched before you go in the van.

Can I turn that music off? Yeah, sure thing.

Yes, yes.

OK, BLEEP, we'll just stand you here for the time being.

The two guys are going to search you, all right?

Do you need a hand with that? I'm going to give you a search,

all right? Have you got anything on you that's going to hurt me or you?

No, I've got no blades or guns.

Needles? Or needles either.

In you go. Up, up, up, up, up.

There you go, that's it.

All right?

This is not uncharacteristic of BLEEP.

He can be obstructive sometimes,

but in my experience, when I've dealt with him before,

if you reason with him, and if you take your time with him,

you can get through.

And, as you seen, we did that there, so that's pretty good.

At the end of the day, when he's arrested,

it's not a case of we need a warrant.

The door's open, the foot's in the door.

Colin's told him he's arrested and that's it.

Island policing has its unique challenges,

but not every beat in the division

is as isolated as Shetland.

At its heart is the Highlands capital, Inverness,

where urban policing is the name of the game,

and where tonight new recruit Mo Sarwar is beginning his shift.

He's been called to an incident involving a cyclist

on one of the city's busiest roads, in rush hour.

SIREN WAILS

There's not much information on the call,

so we don't know if it's like any injuries,

if he's conscious, unconscious.

This is an RTC involving a bike.

It's a very serious thing

because the cyclist's not wearing any protective gear.

You think, like, maybe it's going to be a fatality

or somebody's going to be seriously injured.

So you need to prepare yourself

if they need a CPR or, you know,

if they need any other medical attention.

So best-case scenario is hopefully he's not going to be injured,

or she's not going to be injured.

And the worst case is, like, you know...

I don't want to think about, right now, the worst-case scenario

because, you know, be positive, fingers crossed.

It's still unclear if anyone is badly injured,

but on approach more details come in.

The cyclist is alive,

but it's not yet clear how badly hurt he is.

Pain in your chest?

Not got tingling in your arms or your legs or anything?

The van needs to be lifted off him as quickly and safely as possible.

The question is, how?

If somebody is under the car, you know, you can't take this person

out because we don't know what kind of physical injuries

these people have.

So that's why we need to involve the ambulance crews,

we need to involve the fire brigade because they have the proper tools.

Try not to move, OK?

You're just under a van,

you've come off your bike.

Fire Service are coming here.

You got any cones in your van, Lacey,

so I can shut the road to that side? Yeah.

Hey, buddy.

Hey, buddy, can you hear us?

The cyclist could have serious injuries,

but the paramedics need to wait for the fire brigade to arrive

with specialist lifting equipment.

Until then, there's little they can do for the patient

except monitor him and try to reassure him.

This is the bike over here. Sorry...

Back in Shetland, police have arrested a man on suspicion

of threatening a staff member at a local pharmacy.

Just take your time, OK?

I'm not going to rush out. No, absolutely, there's no rush

because I certainly don't want you hurting yourself. Yeah.

We'll give you a hand. Yeah.

OK, big step down.

Good man, there we go.

He's known to have learning difficulties,

so certain procedures need to be followed while he's in custody.

Any...anything else happens, the cuffs go straight back on.

Do you understand that? Yeah, got it. I'll keep calm.

OK, I'm going to take this one off first. Yeah.

This man does have a learning difficulty.

However, it doesn't take away from the fact

that he's committed an offence.

He is offered support when he comes in here,

and it's usually in the guise of an appropriate adult.

An appropriate adult is someone outside the police,

often a community volunteer,

who supports people with learning difficulties

when they are arrested.

So they would be there with the job of making sure the man

understood what was happening with them.

But in a remote community like Shetland,

finding someone to fill this role at short notice can be tricky.

We couldn't get one,

so we need to then look at other options.

I quite like the cells, like. Really?!

I'm not going to be long doing your Pot Noodle,

but if you need anything else, the buzzer is there, OK?

In the end, the suspect's lawyer is reached by phone.

He agrees that his client can be charged

and that he will check with him tomorrow to make sure he understood

everything that happened.

So you're going home right now?

You're not staying in here till Monday.

Do you understand that? Yeah, that's clear to me. Yeah.

I can't travel down the street basically?

You can go down the street.

But just stay away on the left side.

But you can't go anywhere near Boots.

And don't be don't be looking in there.

Just be nice to people in general, yeah.

With this confirmed,

the suspect is released on bail

on condition if he goes near the complainer again,

he will be immediately arrested.

He was not allowed to go back to that particular pharmacy

or speak to the gentleman that he'd spoke to or the staff members,

so it gives them a bit of peace of mind.

It's set in stone -

if he goes back there, he will be subject to another arrest.

Hopefully, that's enough to put him off.

Back in Inverness,

an injured cyclist

is trapped under a van.

Take a nice deep breath for me.

The Fire Brigade has arrived to try and free him.

His head is trapped there, so we need to get an air bag in

and lift the front of the van up.

Getting the man out safely needs equipment

only carried by the Fire Service.

Trying to get the front of the van up.

He was conscious and he was talking back to us,

which was a positive sign.

His response was he don't have any kind of pain,

but at the same time it was going through our mind

maybe he has some kind of internal injuries.

When you have RTC and wounds are fresh, internal,

you don't feel much pain because your body are in a shock.

So we're trying to get the front of the van up.

Using an inflatable airbag,

the rescue team aims to raise the van enough to free the cyclist.

Keep going, keep going.

That's it starting to lift away from the casualty.

Keep going.

Casualty is moving.

Can you hear us?

That's the maximum.

OK.

OK, pick up.

So when the Fire Service spoke to him so he respond to them,

which means he's conscious.

So they're worried about his neck injuries, you know, that's why

they are trying to be careful when they take him out from the van.

He was quite far in.

Hopefully it's going to be OK. Fingers crossed.

While the Fire Service struggle with the van,

Mo and his colleagues have another important job.

We need to do our investigation point of view.

So to find out what actually happened here and who is at fault.

So that's why we start, like, doing our witness statements.

The guy fell off the kerb,

I think he had been scooping a couple. OK.

Hit that car.

Have you...?

No, I was just passing by.

OK, so you heard from other people, like, what happened? Yeah.

Can I Just take your details in case...?

Yeah. No bother at all.

Did they say that? No, I'm just...

I was just coming back from work, so I never actually seen

the incident myself.

As far as I know, he hit one car coming off the kerb

and then the next driver,

I think he just managed to stop in time

before any serious damage sort of properly kicked in.

I'm not seeing lights on his bike,

so he's going to learn the hard way, isn't he?

Paramedics and the Fire Service are still trying to free the cyclist.

Can you shuffle yourself out?

It's a delicate and potentially dangerous process.

It's clear, mate.

Just maybe just roll onto your back if you can, Paul.

Out from under the van,

the man needs to be urgently checked by paramedics

for any life-threatening injuries.

That's the one. You're all right, you're all right.

Thanks, guys.

Keep your legs straight if you can.

Rest your head back when you're ready. Good man.

We think you should go to hospital. Get checked out.

Because if you've got a head injury and you've been drinking...

..then...

..it's harder for your wound to stop bleeding.

Well, there was a lot of blood over it.

While the cyclist is being checked over,

Mo is concluding his initial investigation into what happened.

So what we got initial so far from the eyewitness and paramedics,

he's very intoxicated.

And he admitted that he took drugs as well.

He has taken drugs today as well.

And according to eyewitness, he just fell down on the road

and the van saw him, you know, they pressed the brake.

The time they pressed the brakes, he was already under the van.

And it seems like he hasn't got any serious injuries.

He just has scratches on his forehead.

But obviously they're going to assess in the hospital

to see if he's got anything internal or not.

While Mo has been speaking to witnesses,

his colleague has breathalysed the van driver.

The result was negative.

Now his side of the story needs to be noted.

This seems like anything serious.

Like we don't know exactly, obviously.

We don't know, but, yeah, you know.

Yeah, it's lucky boy, to be honest.

He is a very lucky boy.

Very lucky boy.

This is going to have to come off.

He was literally just an inch in front of the wheel,

probably less than an inch, to be honest.

So the reactions of the drivers must have been pretty quick.

Even with cycling, people think it's funny,

you can go out and have a drink and be able to cycle home,

but this just proves that you can't do that.

With the road reopened,

there's just one more tricky issue to deal with.

The guy doesn't want to go to hospital. He says he's totally fine.

He don't need any medical treatment,

but because, you know, because he's so much intoxicated

so the paramedics say they're still going to take him to hospital

to check him over to see if he's OK or not, you know.

So, but he's a lucky boy.

Like, this is... Nothing seems serious.

Like, you know, because we got scared when we got the call, like,

you know, somebody's under the bus, you know?

Always bad thoughts come in your mind, but he's very, very lucky.

Next time, in Kyle of Lochalsh,

a pensioner is arrested on suspicion of drug dealing

right next to the police station...

It is a bit cocky.

Police!

Oh, quite a fair amount in there.

..a mysterious skeleton is spotted at the bottom of a harbour on Skye...

Animal-like, but... You think it's a skull?

..and in Inverness

police launch a major search for a high-risk missing man.

Oh, I know him. Have you seen him recently?