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 is 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 off line.

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

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

Top drawer. Just a lot of rocks.

This is a cocaine wipe.

If it turns blue, then it is cocaine, that.

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.

I've always wanted to be a police officer for as long

as I can remember.

I started watching all these factual TV programmes and Columbo.

I realised that I kind of wanted to be on the front line.

It is immensely satisfying to be able to help people and,

you know, detect crime.

PC Louise Freer's beat is one of the most spectacular

in the Highlands.

It takes in Kyle of Lochalsh and the Isle of Skye.

Crime is low, but recently Louise has noticed something suspicious

right next door to the police station.

I was coming into Kyle Police Station

and when I was parking up,

I saw a known drug user pull up into the car park.

He's then exited the vehicle and then gone

into the block of flats.

The block of flats is less than 100 yards away from Kyle's police

station and shares the same entrance of the car park,

so it was right under our noses.

Louise and her colleagues have been keeping an eye on the flat,

and they've logged several known drug users coming and going.

You didn't even have to leave the building to get the intelligence.

Some of the windows overlook the car park, and then the other windows

overlook the entrance to the flats.

You're getting a car that's coming in at, like, half eight, half nine,

half ten at night and it's merely for 10 to 15 minutes.

They're not staying for cups of tea or having a chat.

They're literally in and out.

And that's what's kind of sparked my interest.

More digging has revealed that the occupant of the flat

is a woman in her 60s, with a background a bit different

from the average Highland granny.

There is no such thing as a stereotypical drug dealer.

They come from all walks of life.

The suspect already had previous for possession

with the intent to supply.

So I've had enough intel, enough evidence to then create a warrant.

Just down to good old-fashioned police work.

Today, Louise and her team are executing the search warrant

on the suspected drug dealer on their doorstep.

It is a bit cocky.

Yeah, because at the moment, she's probably sitting there thinking

that she's got away with it.

The Operational Support Unit,

cops trained to raid and search properties, has arrived as backup.

Louise is taking no chances.

She's briefing them a few miles outside the village.

They come in their big riot bus, and it would be a bit obvious

if they came to Kyle Police Station, as the suspect's house was right

across from the police station.

We just didn't want her to have any kind of inkling something

was going to happen.

So that's basically where we're going.

It's right next door to the police station.

Handy. So that's obviously the main entrance.

So you go up a flight of stairs and that's her door there.

The only chance of compromise is from obviously the windows,

if they're overlooking. Yeah.

Literally, the views are only out that way,

so not even that way, she's seeing.

Yeah, we can get in along the building line.

Yeah. Straight in the door.

As far as we are aware, it's just her living in the property.

Perfect. Thank you.

For Louise, this is the culmination of several months of detective work,

so the pressure's on.

Just before executing a drug warrant,

so many emotions, so many feelings go through you.

You just hope that the time that you've spent gathering

the evidence, it's all worth it, at the end of the day,

in getting a result.

Go ahead. Hi. Her vehicle is still not here.

We'll head upstairs.

Even though the woman's van isn't here, she might still be at home

and could dispose of any evidence if she spots the team coming.

They need to move fast.

Police!

Clear. Clear.

Bathroom clear!

Clear!

The suspect isn't in.

Fantastic, boys.

So the boys are going to get de-kitted

and they're going to help search the property.

Almost immediately, they spot something suspicious.

White powder.

Very kindly of her, she's put her driving licence next to it.

To be certain this is what it looks like,

Louise can test it on the spot.

So this is a cocaine wipe.

So I just want to see... If it turns blue,

then it is cocaine, that.

Yeah.

See the instant colour of blue?

So that is positive indication that it's cocaine.

It proves that the intel is right.

So, just take a wee photo of that and then I'll put that into a bag.

With the cocaine bagged as evidence, they move on to search the rest

of the flat.

We're very meticulous about how we search.

We will look in places that probably divisional cops wouldn't

think of looking.

And we're trained to a certain level to look for items

as small as a kind of micro-SIM card.

To be honest, it didn't strike me as your normal drug dealer's house.

It was extremely tidy.

It looks like prescribed medication.

Not recent either. But it's always worth opening them up just to see

if they've put anything else inside.

It was a bit odd that a person with knitting as a hobby

was dealing in drugs.

But it was more kind of what you'd expect

in your granny's house.

Quite often a lot of folks hide stuff -

money, kind of tick lists, drugs.

Just make sure you get an idea of where folk hide stuff depending

what kind of house you're in.

In the bedroom, the team finds something else that could point

to illegal activity.

Tonne of cash.

Oh. Perfect.

Quite a fair amount in there. Quite a fair amount indeed.

Right, you take that and then...

It's 500 per bundle, by the looks of things.

When we find the money, it was kind of all kept together,

it was neatly stacked.

It wasn't all over the room.

I don't think many people have that lying in their bed.

Well, that was two grand.

So, no, 4,130.

4,130? Yeah. A lot of cash.

For someone that's potentially unemployed. Yeah.

We've just got trace amounts of cocaine,

like, as in personal use of cocaine.

Really? At least if we can take this money,

it's going to inconvenience her. Aye, I hope so. 100%.

Together, the money and the cocaine is enough for Louise

to arrest the suspect.

Now all she needs to do is to wait in the station next door

for the suspect to come home.

Oh, so you're clear left.

In Inverness, capital of the Highlands, with a population

of 80,000, PCs Kirsty Miller and Bruce Sutherland have an urgent

call about a missing person.

He last sent a text message on Sunday just past.

When a text message has gone back,

it's not been delivered, so we believe it's phone's off.

We've tried phoning that, so at the minute

he's a medium-risk missing person.

46-year-old Grzegorz Ulas

has been reported missing by his family.

He left home a week ago.

Over the past 24 hours, they've lost all contact with him.

The level of concern for the missing person does change...

..depending on the information we've got.

They might have said something that raises more concern for them,

and puts them more in immediate concern

that we need to go and try and find them.

From speaking to his family,

the police are concerned for Grzegorz's mental health,

so they want to try and trace him to make sure he hasn't come to harm.

A consideration for us would be to understand if a person

has gone missing voluntarily or involuntarily.

People will go missing and loved ones or friends or family

will report them as missing or report concern for them,

but potentially, they are missing on a voluntary basis,

but they may be vulnerable.

We then need to assess, well, how vulnerable is that individual?

You know, what are the kind of factors

that might make them vulnerable?

He's not been in any communication with anyone.

And I think that is...

The main thing for us is that we don't know where he is.

He could be with an associate that we are not aware of,

that the family aren't aware of.

Do they have money, their phone?

What possessions do they have?

Have they got on public transport?

Are they elsewhere in the UK?

Are they close by, they just don't want to be found?

It's quite worrying for us because

it might mean that they've done something to themselves.

You feel the pressure to find a missing person as quick as you can.

In the Highlands, people often go missing in the mountains,

far from CCTV or a phone signal.

But in the city, police can use technology

to track someone's movements.

Financial background checks are important for us

because they can tell us if a person has used their bank cards recently.

If they've used them, where have they used them?

And often, if we can establish that a person has used a card,

for example, to withdraw some money,

we'll then start to focus in on that location

and consider options round about CCTV.

Grzegorz's card was last used at this shop

near the family home four days ago.

Hiya. Hi, how are yous?

So we've got missing male at the minute,

who was in the shop on the 1st of September,

and apparently he's bought something within the shop at 19:14 hours.

So it's just to see if we can review it.

19:14 on the 1st of September? Yeah.

Can you get the camera for that? I'll have a look at it.

Have you got a picture of him? Yeah.

Oh, I know him. I know him as well.

Have you seen him recently?

I don't know. I recognise him. Yeah, so do I.

I can't remember if it's morning he comes in. Yeah.

First thing in the morning, like, you know, before work time.

What's his name?

Grzegorz. Grzegorz.

That rings a bell. Yeah.

Has he been reported missing?

Yeah, but we don't know what he's wearing,

so this is hopefully going to be a bit...

There he is. That's him.

Yeah. That's him.

Can we also see what he's been buying? Yep.

There he is. Grand.

Alcohol, cigarettes.

Thank you so much.

If we see him again, I can give yous a shout.

See, to be honest, if you see him,

just 999, you'll get straight through.

There is a media release out for him.

If yous do see him in here, just please phone us straight away.

Thank you.

With any missing person inquiry, we're always going to be

on the back foot in terms of tracking their movements.

So CCTV allows us to get that proof of life

and allows us to establish, when was that person last seen safe and well?

And allows us to work forward from that point.

Quite positive that the staff recognise him,

especially the CCTV as well.

We've managed to get the image of him,

so we've got a more up-to-date description of him,

what he's wearing, so then that can be passed out.

We can also update the media release that's gone out

with what he's been wearing.

Four days have now passed

since Grzegorz's last known card transaction.

The concern is that something has happened to him.

The police need to step up the search

and pursue every other lead they can find

before he comes to any harm.

In Kyle of Lochalsh, Louise and her team have seized

drugs and cash from a flat next door to the station.

Now, they're lying in wait for the neighbour to come home

so they can arrest her.

Go ahead. She's just turned up.

Do you want to come over? Yes, yes.

The suspect of the house has just turned up,

so we'll need to take her in and interview her.

So, yeah. A drugs warrant was executed on your property

and we have found traces of cocaine and cannabis

and we've recovered a quantity of cash.

So we'll need to take you in.

In my house already? Mm-hm. We've executed it.

We executed about... If you're not there,

because we've got a warrant, we can still go in and search.

So you... OK.

Right. Do you want to come with me?

She was a bit kind of shocked to see what's happened.

Due to her age and her mobility, when we arrested her,

and because we were literally only walking 100 yards,

I didn't seem it necessary to put handcuffs on her.

She wasn't going to run far.

If she did, then I would be quickly after her.

Do you want to just take a seat?

I'm arresting you under section one of the Criminal Justice Act 2016

for concern in the supply of drugs.

Do you have any reply to any of the above?

Could you get me a lawyer, please?

We'll just go through that in a minute.

Have you used drugs or any other substances

or psychoactive substances, commonly known as legal highs,

in the last 24 hours?

What did you take?

OK. When did you last take it?

I'm just going to give you a quick search. Is that OK? Absolutely.

Once the suspect has been searched,

there's one final place to look for evidence of dealing -

her van, which she uses as a mobile home.

Obviously, we're going to be searching your van with you present.

We'll need to put cuffs on you, just to be on the safe side.

I mean, what I can do is

I can put the cuffs on, but I'll just put your scarf over,

so if anybody's out there, it doesn't look like

you've got cuffs on, all right?

When we had to go back out to search her vehicle,

we did then have to put her in cuffs.

So for her dignity, we just put a wee blanket over her.

Right, OK. Take a minute.

So in here is cocaine

and a wee... Wee scales.

This is another key piece of evidence.

Scales like these can be used to measure out drugs for sale.

But in a case like this, there's one other thing

that's often absolutely key - a suspect's phone.

PHONE RINGS

We did seize her mobile phone

because whilst she was in custody, her phone was,

you know, it was getting messages, it was getting phone calls.

And there is a good potential chance that we could find something

that's on her mobile phone that kind of links her to being,

you know, concerned in the supply of drugs.

Right. Do you want to come through?

If you just take the seat on the opposite side of the shield.

Before beginning this interview,

under section 31 of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2016,

I must remind you of certain information.

Please listen carefully.

With the flat and van searched and the suspect's phone seized,

Louise questions her about what they have found.

The funny thing was, was when we took her in,

she said that the money was from selling her cakes at a craft fair.

I don't know how good her baking is,

but I don't think it's four grand's worth.

Interview over, the suspect is released.

Once her phone has been examined,

all evidence will be sent to the Procurator Fiscal,

who will decide if she is to be charged.

With drugs, it's really hard to say

what quantity is a supply and what quantity is personal.

Any drugs recovered is a win.

Anyone that's involved in

the supply or manufacture of a controlled substance,

or takes drugs, commits an offence.

The effects of crime that revolves around drugs is a huge impact.

At the end of the day, we are causing disruption

and inconveniencing the drug suppliers

and we're putting them on the back foot

and it is making it harder for them to sell drugs.

A missing person inquiry is a time-critical inquiry.

Depending on the level of concern for an individual,

it might be the difference from them coming to harm

or them not coming to harm.

In Inverness, it's now 30 hours

since missing man Grzegorz last contacted his family.

On this occasion,

his friends had not heard from him in a number of days,

which was very out of character.

Concern for Grzegorz's state of mind make finding him all the more urgent.

Mental health is probably not

one of the things that men want to talk about.

And because they don't want to talk about it,

they don't want to let anyone know.

They don't want to seem inferior or weak,

so they keep it all bottled up, which is then the main cause,

I think, of how mental health then deteriorates a lot more.

Police need new leads.

PC Darren Shields and his partner,

who can't be identified for security reasons,

are on the case.

They have been speaking to Grzegorz's wife.

She hasn't given us anywhere in particular

in relation to addresses

or sort of memorable or special locations.

She is saying that he does have two quite close friends.

We're just going to go and try a few friends' addresses

and see if they know or have seen him at all.

This is a key line of inquiry.

60% of those missing are found by the police.

Just 26% turn up of their own accord.

A lot of the times, if people don't want to be found,

they'll go and stay with friends and they'll go to ground

when they do not want to be seen or found.

Hello. How are you doing? Good, thanks. How are you?

I'm good, thank you.

I'm looking to see if there's Laszlos, Laszlo?

Hi. We're here in relation to a potential friend.

Is it Grzegorz?

He's been reported missing by his wife as missing.

Really? Yeah.

So when was it that you seen him last?

The same day, 30th.

What was his demeanour like?

I can tell that he had problems, but obviously, I didn't want to...

Mm-hm. I had a thought today to go over to see him.

So what, he's missing?

Yeah, since Wednesday.

See, if you phoned him, would you see if he'd pick up?

All right. Of course.

Voicemail. Voicemail. OK.

Is there any other friends, family?

Best friend, according to him, is... Is Thomas, OK.

Thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated.

OK. Cheers now.

See you later.

We're about to just go to another address, which is the best friend,

to see if they've heard or seen from Grzegorz at all.

Or if he's maybe been bedding down here,

which might also be the option.

Hello. Hello.

Thomas, is it? Yes. Thomas.

We're here just in relation to a missing person.

Grzegorz. Oh, right, yes.

Is he a friend of yours? Yeah.

What it is, is Grzegorz has been reported missing.

Have you seen or heard from him at all?

Is he staying with you?

We spoke last week. OK.

Just ten minutes, maybe, on the phone. That's it.

OK. What did he say?

Did he seem himself, or was he...? No, no, no.

We spoke about the party a week ago, so...

OK. OK.

How often would you keep in contact with him, then?

I see him every weekend

because have a party or something like that.

Yeah. Any friends or family that he might go to or attend at?

I don't know. We have different friends, you know?

So, a good friend for motorbike, Laszlo.

OK. Ah, we've just been to his, yeah.

Okey doke. And that's the only one you can think of. OK.

The likes of this gentleman,

he doesn't really have that many friends, it seems,

so he's maybe not got that network that he can sort of fall back on.

It might be the case that once we get back, the Sarge might

decide that, given obviously all the information,

they might put it to high-risk.

You get to a point where you've exhausted inquiry

around about friends and associates.

We have to reassess the risk that this individual is becoming higher

because we have no proof of life, and that then will push us towards

making that individual high-risk.

Every minute counts in these inquiries.

There's still no activity on Grzegorz's bank card

or evidence he has left the city.

The police are now deploying

every resource they have to track him down.

In a division as vast as the Highlands and Islands,

new recruits can find themselves posted to some extraordinary places,

like the majestic Isle of Skye.

I arrived two days ago, so I'm still

kind of finding my surroundings a wee bit.

PC Cameron Hopkins recently completed his training

and joined the response team based in Skye's main town, Portree.

For someone new to the job and who grew up in bustling Inverness,

it's a big change.

I'd always wanted to join the police since I was younger

and as I was kind of approaching 30,

I kind of wondered what it was I was really wanting to do.

I spoke to my mum and said to my mum,

"Look, I've got an interview for the police," and she went,

"That's the one of the least surprising things you've ever said to me."

Hiya, you all right? Hello.

I'm kind of enjoying the kind of small town feel.

I'm beginning to recognise faces and get to know a few folk now.

I'm definitely kind of settling in.

Kind of being from a city,

still kind of getting used to remoteness.

Pumped up. Ready to go. Let's go.

Portree doesn't see much serious crime, but as the first call

of the day comes in, that could be about to change.

PHONE RINGS

Police. What's the address and what's the emergency?

Showing Cameron the ropes on this island beat

is Sergeant Chris Tait.

If this is a dead body,

Portree harbour could be declared a crime scene.

So we would seize the remains.

We would take pictures of them and send them to the centre

for human identification in Dundee.

Exciting to kind of know I'm stepping out

into the real world now. It's still quite a surreal feeling.

As a nurse, I had to deal with quite a lot, dealing with things

sort of sadly, like death. You don't know how that person

has ended up there or what the body is.

One of the people who spotted the suspected body

points out its exact location.

Whereabouts are you looking? Just there. Oh, yeah.

Oh, aye. Yeah. Seen it?

And there's a few, like, kind of elongated limbs.

It's like an arm bone. It's too long for it.

I can only see part of the ribcage. Yeah.

I think it's important to keep an open mind in unusual scenarios,

because you don't know the full picture until you're there.

But we're looking at it from 15 metres away under water.

Is that a skull?

I thought that further on, but I might be wrong.

We have a plan.

He's got an underwater camera, so he's going to go

and take some pictures.

At that point, a member of the community put their hand up

and said, well, actually I do a bit of freediving in my spare time.

Willing volunteers.

So that was a big help for us that somebody could potentially get

down there and identify these bones.

Right, there. Just above them. Yeah. Yeah.

A number of different things we can do.

We'll have to cross that bridge once we get some photographs of it.

Straight off the bat, to me that looks like a sheep.

It's definitely a sheep? Yeah.

100% not human.

Do you want me to bring it over? No!

No. You can just leave it where it is. Perfect.

It was a bit of a relief.

It was a bit kind of nerve-racking to know we'd potentially

got human remains. We don't know how they got there.

So I think when we found out it was a sheep, it was a bit kind

of like, right, OK, we can relax a bit,

we know that we're not dealing with a crime scene here,

and we're able to kind of go back about our shift.

Legend. Thank you very much. Where's your towel? Is it in here?

In the back. An interesting day for you. It is!

Did you find anything interesting? Aye. A sheep, I reckon.

Listen, at least it wasnae me because I've been drunk

quite a few times and I've never made it in there yet.

We've pulled a couple of bodies out of the drink here.

It's been quite busy, actually. Busier than I thought it'd be.

So it's been interesting. I'm still excited to come back tomorrow,

so that's probably a good thing!

That would have been a long night if that was human remains.

Yeah, I know.

In Inverness, Grzegorz has now been missing and out of contact

for 48 hours.

He has been escalated to high risk and senior officers are meeting

to plan the next urgent steps.

In an inquiry where we feel that someone's life could be at risk,

we need to access our specialist resources, we need to do

everything we can for that individual, and also

for their family and their friends.

We have put officers out to the house because I want comfort

that the house was fully searched.

There's no trace of him within.

Also, look to get more work done on the comms and the financials.

There's been no further activity on his phone.

The latest update we've had, just in the last sort of 20, 30 minutes,

is that his wife had been out a walk down below the railway bridge,

and about ten minutes along the walk, they found the remnants

of a campfire with some bottles of beer.

And it's not very clear, but there's either an envelope or a letter

found, but it's got his name on it.

'OK. Um, that is urgent, urgent.'

The abandoned campfire is close to the shop where Grzegorz

was spotted on CCTV. It's in a large wooded area.

The best chance of finding someone here is with a trained search dog.

So handler Ross Joy and his dog Bruce are on their way.

There's new information been received that he may be camping

down at that site.

So we're going down with Bruce to have a search and see

what we can find.

Bruce is trained in following human scent.

Police with dog! The dog is searching.

If he finds you, stand still, you'll come to no harm.

The dogs are an integral part of missing person enquiries.

They're an incredibly important resource for us.

And they can cover so much ground so quickly.

The dog may also be able to help us potentially recover other items.

Bringing them in at a really early point,

it can cut down on a massive amount of time for us

because they may focus our search.

Ross begins the search at the abandoned campfire mentioned

by Grzegorz's wife.

There's the fire pit.

The information we got was that the family had found a fire pit,

and next to it was an envelope with the misper's name on it.

So what we'll do is we'll do a search of this area, and we'll see

if we can pick anything up.

Police with dog. The dog is searching.

If he finds you, stand still, you'll come to no harm.

From the area around the fire, Ross and Bruce widen the search

to sweep the surrounding terrain.

We need to get over to the beach side.

We'll do this bit here, and then we'll walk down and come back

along the waterfront.

Onwards!

So in this crowded area, it's,

I mean, I think the wind's coming this way.

So if there was anything up ahead, Bruce would be on it,

you can see, as we go up, and then he would shoot off.

We also look for his behaviour.

So if he starts heading off up, you know, into the tree line,

then it would suggest to me, right, he's on something,

he's picked up a scent of some sort.

We've concluded the search of the area.

Unfortunately, we haven't found anything.

Probably get another area, another task in and see

where we go from there. So, yeah. So the search will continue.

If the dog has been in and the dog and its handler have searched

an area and they've not come up with anything,

often that will increase our concern for that individual.

We will go through,

where are we at with this and what do we need to do?

If Grzegorz is alive in these woods, the dog should pick up his scent.

But it's a huge area, and he could be miles away.

It's now 60 hours since any contact and the police are no closer

to finding him.

The Highlands are famous for mountains and moors,

but these places aren't just a playground for tourists.

They're also home to a huge variety of wildlife, much of it protected

by law from being harmed by humans.

I'm the only full-time officer within Highlands

investigating wildlife crime.

Wildlife crime is important everywhere,

particularly in the Highlands.

Anything from damage to freshwater pearl mussels,

fish poaching, deer poaching,

to more serious and high profile cases where birds of prey

are being persecuted.

These animals have a right to be protected.

Today, Dan is investigating a suspected case of wildlife crime

against one of Scotland's most famous birds.

Today we've had a report of a satellite-tagged golden eagle

that has gone, suddenly gone offline and gone missing.

The information on the satellite tag has told us that it's been roosting

for almost 24 hours, and suddenly it's upped sticks and moved

two kilometres in a different direction and just gone offline.

It shouts out to me that it's been killed, and then whoever's killed it

has realised it's satellite tagged and then destroyed the tag

and destroyed the bird.

It does raise suspicions, particularly when that grouse moor

is well known for persecution of birds of prey.

Golden eagles are a protected species.

They're also Scotland's apex predator and will eat foxes,

young deer and frequently grouse,

putting them in direct conflict with gamekeepers.

So within Highlands and Islands, 100% of all birds of prey

that are being killed happen on or near land

that's managed for game bird shooting. Tourism within Highlands,

the fishing, the shooting, there's big money.

I support all aspects of that.

However, legislation is in place and when laws are broken,

it's our duty to investigate that.

Dan has the coordinates of where the eagle's tag was last online.

It's now a potential crime scene, so he needs to get there as soon

as possible to look for evidence.

Dan is just one cop in this huge Highland beat, so he relies

on the public to help. Today he is meeting a local RSPB investigator.

Together they head for one of the golden eagle's

last-tracked locations.

We're here looking for evidence that the eagles have been here.

This is the location of where that, where the bird spent

the previous, uh, 24 hours prior to the satellite tag going offline.

At its roost site, we'll be looking for some evidence of some form

of trap there that's trapped that bird.

Shotgun cartridges, feathers...

..that's maybe an indicator that something untoward's happened to it.

Well spotted.

These golden eagle feathers show the bird was here.

I think it's important if we can at least prove they are actually here.

And it backs up what's on the data of the satellite tag.

We've marked it with a grid reference as well on my phone,

taken a photograph of it.

But a few feathers aren't evidence of foul play.

Dan needs more proof.

So we'll just continue walking up and down this fence line

and see what we can find.

I'll just have a quick look at this, then.

We're always looking for DNA from a suspect, shotgun cartridge,

or food, empty drinks bottle.

Anything, really, anything that shouldn't be here.

I've got a reasonable cause to suspect

that something criminal has happened.

But unless we find something a bit more tangible,

then we will have difficulty showing that.

Do I have a hunch? The satellite tag has been working perfectly fine.

And then suddenly, for some reason, it's disappeared and gone

two kilometres that way in 20 minutes, and then disappeared.

That strikes me as more than a little bit suspicious.

At the most northerly tip of mainland Scotland,

Sergeant Stephen Todd is on patrol on the windswept coastline

near John O'Groats.

The distance between us and Glasgow,

it's six hours plus.

Um, and again, this is cops that are based in Scotland

that don't grasp where we are.

And what I always explain to them is, right, keep heading north.

They're like, yeah, yeah? Keep heading north. Yeah, yeah.

See when your feet get wet? That's where we are.

Oh, it's a, it's a huge, like a huge drop

at the end of this.

So it is literally the edge of the world!

This is one of the most sparsely populated places in Britain.

But this morning Stephen has run into a stray four-legged local.

Could be taking a dog back to the station with us.

The dog's come running through the fields, so it is a kind

of a missing dog.

We've got an address in Thurso, so I've asked my Thurso guys to come

meet us, and we'll get the dog back to the owner.

I don't know how he's managed to make it all this way.

Come on, then. We'll get you back. Come on.

But word travels fast around here.

And before Stephen can leave for the station, the news a dog

has turned up has found its way to the right person.

Oh.

You all right, Michael? How are you doing?

The dog's owner, Michael, is a local and a familiar face to Stephen.

Two days?

Hey. He's been enjoying himself anyway.

At least you got him back.

You better get him back while you can. He's sitting there shivering.

You take care, pal.

When I first came up here, the plan was to do my two years' probation

and then venture back south to England. That two years

very quickly became three, became four.

And here I am, 11, 12 years later.

No intention of going back down the road now.

Stephen's not the only one drawn to this part of the world.

Tourism, especially in campervans, is booming.

But on these narrow roads visitors can sometimes come a cropper.

I have no idea what I'm going to do about this.

HE LAUGHS

How are you? Are you all right? No.

Right, I'm thinking if someone gets in... Yeah. ..tries to drive...

Yeah. ..we'll pull it down so we can hit the road. OK. Cheers.

We'll try and do that? Yes. Yeah.

Most cops up here, they do take a hands on approach, you know.

They're very good at problem solving. They've got to be.

As I say, if we're waiting for a recovery truck to come out,

you know, it could be a good hour before that truck's there

and through that hour the road's closed.

Well, you know, if there's other ways that we can get that vehicle

removed, let's problem solve it. Let's do it.

Yeah. So if you try and go forward... Yeah.

..I'll pull down. Yes.

ENGINE SOUNDS

I don't think you're going to have any luck with that.

No.

When I joined the police, I wanted that fast-paced life.

I wanted, you know, to be involved with everything.

I wanted to be in all the police chases. I wanted to do all that.

But ultimately, we join this job to help people.

Is that all right?

Yes. It's what I want. Cheers.

This gentleman here has kindly offered his help to try and give us

a hand bouncing the truck back out!

STEPHEN LAUGHS

One, two, three...

Is that just digging in that side as well?

It's not even doing anything that side, is it? No.

Now we're cooking! Come on, boys!

Come on, boys, now we're cooking. This is the community spirit.

Get a load of weight on this corner. Get the door open.

ENGINE SOUNDS

Yes!

There you go.

Brute force.

Thank you! No worries.

There's not many jobs that I've been to where a member

of the public hasn't offered some sort of help or support.

It goes back to the community spirit and whatnot.

It is...it works wonders up here.

It does definitely work.

I've never had that before.

That's a first.

In Inverness 72 hours since last contact,

Grzegorz is still missing.

So far, a search of local woods has drawn a blank, and worries

about his mental health mean the police are extremely concerned

for his wellbeing. Finding him is currently the highest priority.

Coordinating the search is Officer Craig Findlater.

One of the main challenges that we have at the moment

is just the lack of sightings and the lack of information

that we have to go on.

This is the last CCTV sighting we have of the missing person,

and here is where an envelope was found with the missing person's

name on it.

So our search has been focused in areas where the missing person

might seclude himself away from public view.

These are, the shaded areas are areas which have already

been completed. The unshaded areas are areas

identified where we need to search.

But you can see, you know, within just a 500 metre radius,

how big of a search area that we may have to search.

All resources available are being deployed, including

the Specialist Operational Support Unit.

They are trained in carrying out methodical searches of areas.

Whilst that is going on there are other lines of enquiries going on

potentially around about mobile phones,

where they might be and where we might locate them.

Woods near the shop where Grzegorz was last seen on CCTV,

and where an envelope with his handwriting was found,

are still the main focus of the search.

Leading the team here is Sergeant Graham McPherson.

You know we're here for Grzegorz Ulas, who's missing.

Last seen wearing a green puffer jacket, black beanie hat,

orange trousers and a black backpack. Six foot one.

Muscular build. Size ten.

We'll be doing from here, all the way up to Tower Road.

Happy, boots, poles? Yeah.

You cannot ignore the place last seen. Yeah.

Because for all we know, that envelope,

it could be a sheer coincidence. Yeah.

But it's a definite place last seen. Yeah.

We go and we search that place last seen.

We create what we call sectors.

Everything within that 500 metres that would be deemed high risk

for finding a missing person would be searched first.

Can you go left marker?

These woods are not remote.

They are within the city limits, but they are dense

and hard to search.

Ready? Let's go.

A person could easily be in here and not be found.

Yeah.

It's getting quite thick, isn't it?

Ultimately, we're looking for a human being

and you're constantly talking,

you're constantly thinking, if that was me, where would I go?

Where would I hide? We're making sure that we're

not missing anything at all.

And just in case the missing person has kind of buried himself away

under the bushes, or any item of clothing, it's just to make sure

that there's definitely nobody there.

It was hard graft, and we were going through

some pretty heavy undergrowth.

We knew we had a lot of areas to cover

with not that many kind of searchers on the ground.

No. Nothing relevant.

OK, that's us then.

We'll stop at this path. That's it done, then we can come back up here.

OK, yeah.

If there's a vulnerable missing person, we want feet on the ground

as quickly as we can. My team are very, very good

at dropping everything because they know it's important.

I take it that's just thick, thick brambles for you, Dougie?

Yeah, we can see through it.

Can you not get through, no? No. Ah, right, OK.

If it's, if it's too thick for us to go through, it's generally

too thick for any person to go through.

But we still make an effort to try and get in as best we can.

OK. I'll just...

..career through.

When we were searching for Grzegorz, it wasn't a good feeling.

There was no phone data.

There was no financial withdrawals from accounts.

There was no other positive sightings.

Um, so you look at all that

and you form an opinion of

what's potentially happened to the missing person.

As daylight starts to fade, there's still no sign of Grzegorz.

And with no clues to his whereabouts in the search so far, it's becoming

more likely he has come to harm.

On the vast moors south of Inverness,

wildlife officer Dan is on the trail of a golden eagle

whose electronic tag suddenly, and suspiciously, went offline.

It's not the first time he's investigated crime against birds

of prey up here.

Just to give an indication of what, eh,

of the land that we're on at the moment,

I think it was 2017.

There was a fen trap found up on that hillside, uh...

..with a buzzard alive in it, found by a cyclist.

And, uh, gamekeeper arrived and let it go.

It's important when we're walking, we're looking at how the ground

is managed, looking at what activity is going on,

anything from vehicle tracks to maintenance,

or any idea of why the bird could have come to harm.

So, yeah, it's a big crime scene.

We're just coming up to the location

of where this eagle was last recorded on the satellite tag.

Killing the eagle wouldn't automatically

cut its satellite tracker.

Whoever did it would need to dispose of the device.

Dan has an idea where that might have happened.

I'll tell you what. You'd, eh, disappear in there all right.

How close to the location here are we?

It's just over the brow of this hill, the location.

Certainly off of my device, I don't think I could probably get

much closer to it. We've come across this.

I know that - and I've dealt with satellite tags that have been

smashed up, burnt...

The last one I had was buried in a loch, taped to a rock.

We've come across here, and we've spotted two obvious marks

in this, and we're wondering, has something been thrown

and dumped in there?

I certainly don't want to fall in there, but we've had a good...

I can get my hand in as far as I can to have a good feel around,

and, eh...

Just grab the back to my two legs.

Oh. Don't...

Tight on my ankles.

Yeah.

People do all kinds of weird and wonderful things

to dispose of evidence. It's not beyond reason that

someone's dumped something in there.

A suspect will clearly know that tag is pinging locations.

Bring it somewhere else to make it look like it's moved

from where it was shot.

The satellite tracking information makes it almost certain the eagle

has been killed, but with no body, and no tracker tag,

Dan's investigation has hit a wall.

I think the people that are doing this are,

they know exactly what they're doing.

It makes our job extremely difficult and frustrating.

Eh, we just have to keep on trying and they just have to only get...

..we just have to be lucky once.

They have to be lucky every time they do this, something like this.

So...

Yeah.

DAN SIGHS

So I've just had an update regarding the high risk misper.

So, house to house has been carried on today.

Financial refresh has been done.

It doesn't take us any further forward. There's been

no further usage. The comms refresh shows no change and we have concerns

around his frame of mind when he was last seen.

We've got OSU searching the remaining two sectors

that were left from yesterday.

I think that's everything at the moment.

It's 96 hours since last contact with missing man Grzegorz,

and while the search on the ground continues, the police are starting

to run out of options.

This morning we're back to where we were, around the place

last seen, searching the fields.

I've just had a look and it's thick with trees, so I don't think

we'll do it in one pass.

So, if we take tape out with us, or get anything else and just

tie it to trees so we know our line. Yeah. So we'll just, we'll just make

our way up. Ready? Let's go.

But while the search team is leaving no stone unturned, there is one

other line of inquiry that could still provide a breakthrough.

So when we're involved in a search, communication data

can be very important for phone analysis, particularly

in a heavily populated area.

If they've got a mobile phone with them, they get a cell site

analysis, which basically shows us an area of probability

that that phone was hitting off a mast.

It could help quite significantly.

'Whereabouts are you just now?'

A further analysis was done.

That meant that the police search adviser could analyse it

and refocus the search.

They fed it back into us that the missing person's phone

could only have been connected to one specific mast,

and that mast gave a new area of search.

It was 100% guaranteed that the phone was within a certain direction

of that mast.

We looked at it.

It wasn't too far away from where we were searching.

So we all decided that,

let's refocus and look at this new search area.

For some reason, I was pretty confident that we were going

to find him.

Two minutes after starting the search again, we found Grzegorz.

And although I've seen many sudden death,

I think that's the first person that I've actually found being involved

in the search. Um, so...

..it stuck with me.

I'm actually glad that the search has come to an end,

because it gives that family, um...

..some closure.

Next time a young man with special needs goes missing

in the Cairngorms.

Time is of the essence to find them and keep them safe.

A taxi driver is subjected to a shocking, unprovoked attack.

What, just with his fist?

And in Inverness, police launch a manhunt

after a cyclist is deliberately hit by a car.

The manner of driving is so shocking it could have been catastrophic.

Any idea who's done it?

We have to prove that their intent was to kill the person.