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.

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

Top drawer. Just a lot of rocks.

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.

Being born and bred in the Highlands, I assume that most folk

associate Inverness with the Loch Ness Monster and whisky.

But probably most folk are really unaware that actually, we've got

a massive issue here with county lines drug dealing gangs.

If I were to tell my granny, I think she'd be flabbergasted.

Inverness is Britain's most northerly city,

but the drug gangs now targeting it originate in English cities,

hundreds of miles to the south.

County lines refers to crossing different regions or boundaries

for the purposes of dealing drugs.

We were looking at six to nine groups

operating at any one particular time,

from Liverpool or London or Birmingham.

The police are fighting back by raiding properties

they believe are being used by dealers.

Today, we're going to execute a drug search warrant

linked to a county line group that originates from the Merseyside area.

We've had intelligence to state that they could be within this address.

One of the nominals that we think is within the address is wanted

for a separate incident involving crack and heroin.

So if he's in there, then that's a straight arrest for him.

The property to be raided is in a built-up area

where the police activity will be quickly noticed.

The plan is to enter from the side.

Sometimes with these things, you don't want to be seen

because that changes the element of surprise.

It's important to act fast on a warrant.

Predominantly, one of the reasons is for the destruction of evidence.

If we stand and chap a door, these people aren't going to open it

willingly and say, "Oh, come in and take everything we've got."

They're going to put it down the sink, flush it down the toilet.

The other thing they might be able to do

is they can arm themselves with weapons.

Police!

My daughter's in there.

Clear!

We've got a search warrant to search the address.

As soon as we know the house is clear, you'll go back in.

Don't worry. We've just got a warrant to search your house.

The occupant is not the suspect the police are looking for.

He could be inside.

Bathroom clear!

Once the living room's clear, can we go in?

Yeah. Is it clear now?

There's nobody else in the flat.

Either the suspect was never here

or he was warned the police were coming.

Our colleague here will give you a quick search.

Do you understand that at this time...

Section 23 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, yeah?

You're always hoping that the warrant will be successful.

But when there's no persons within,

there's every chance that someone has spotted us.

If they see us coming, they'll phone ahead to the group to let them know.

So that might give them five or ten minutes

to dispose of any drugs or flee from the address.

But the operation isn't over.

The flat and its occupants need to be searched for any evidence

that a drug gang may have been dealing from here.

I'll caution you as well.

Anything you say, we will note it and we might use in evidence.

You understand? That's all right. Perfect. Right.

Part of the reason why I think some of these groups

find it easy to navigate around Inverness,

because they have built quite a big network of persons

that they can use and depend upon for their drug dealing.

These groups will target different people

depending on what they want done in the area.

For housing, they will target vulnerable people

who are addicted to drugs already

and they will pay them in drugs or small amounts of cash.

This tactic, used frequently by the gangs, is known as cuckooing.

The phrase cuckooing comes from the cuckoo, the bird,

it will take over another bird's nest.

They'll do it up here, whereby they'll actually take over

a vulnerable person's house.

They will use multiple addresses within the space of one day

deliberately to avoid police detection.

No, this has happened because we've had information

that was enough to get us a warrant for the address.

So we wouldn't be here without that.

Her house has had a warrant done at it before,

so she's obviously quite upset that we keep coming back,

but we just have to go off the information

and the intelligence that we get.

No, absolutely.

Has anybody searched in here? Because there's a...

That looks to be a gun.

What is that? It's quite heavy.

Is it a BB gun?

As the team goes room to room,

the search does turn up something suspicious.

That looks like cannabis to me,

but we'll get it tested so we can confirm.

Are we all done?

Not what we were expecting.

But the fact that they're not there is a bonus, I think, for the locals.

But the question is, where are they?

They're somewhere. They're going to be close by,

but they're just not here. So we'll try again.

As a born and bred Invernesian, it actually really sickens me

that these county lines groups

have taken such a hold on my home town.

We can execute search warrants every week,

but sometimes you feel like you're playing Whac-A-Mole.

It does feel like some of these groups just seem to have

this endless supply of foot soldiers

who can keep coming to Inverness to deal drugs, to make money.

Something that we're battling every week.

High in the hills, west of Fort William,

a group of hikers have made a grim discovery.

The body may be that of a hiker reported missing by his family.

The river where it was spotted

is swollen and dangerous after heavy rain.

Since the call came in yesterday,

Mountain rescue volunteers have been searching the area.

They found some items in the river, but there's no sign of a body.

Today, Police Scotland mountain rescue team have arrived to help.

In charge is Inspector Matt Smith.

We knew that an extreme weather event had taken place...

..and the rivers right across the Highlands,

specifically in that area, would have been very, very high.

The person that's phoned 999 to tell us about that incident

has suggested pretty much the same thing.

So it signposts us to why a person's maybe found themselves

in the water in the first place.

But more importantly, we know what a problem and how risky

the search will be in those early hours when we're looking for it.

My God. Right, I'll need to bag and tag some of this.

The family, they're going through the worst time of their life.

And until we bring that person home,

sometimes they're never going to get the closure they need.

It's vitally important we do it.

They are looking to the police and the mountain rescue teams

to find their loved one.

Also on the team is PC Cal McLeod.

What the members of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team

found in their search of the river

is a piece of an Ordnance Survey map.

But interestingly, this is for the next area up, so it might well be

that the gentleman that's missing was thinking about doing that.

So whilst it's not the map for this area, it's just another bit of

a clue that helps us build a picture of what's been going on.

They've recovered a top.

It's not been in the river very long.

And this is a very, very remote place

that doesn't see many people or walkers.

What this tells us is that we definitely know he was here,

we definitely know he's been in the water and the river.

We could be searching for days or weeks

if we thought he was just between three or four glens.

If we know that he's come to grief in the water

and some of his clothing has come off,

so if we get little clues that narrow our search area down,

it means that we've got a better chance of finding that person.

When a body is caught in fast-flowing water,

then its movement can be completely unpredictable.

It could get caught in certain areas underwater.

It could get caught in vegetation near the embankment,

or it could get flushed downstream exceptionally quickly.

The river flows down from the mountains into Loch Arkaig.

If the body has been swept into the loch,

finding it will be almost impossible.

It's 12 miles long and 300ft deep.

With the weather getting worse,

Matt, Cal and the team head up into the hills

to the part of the river where the body was spotted

and the map and clothing found.

It's going to be really difficult because the water levels are really high,

and so there's a real danger for anybody out searching.

And to be honest, today we'll just have to do as best as we can.

There's a few kilometres we can still drive on here.

We're quite lucky to be able to get a bit further up,

to get closer to where we need to access today.

It's a beautiful place, um,

but very Scottish weather, very Highland weather,

absolutely pouring with rain.

And that's us wet before we've even started today.

The place that the body was last seen

was just actually up behind me, just in the trees there.

The ground gets quite narrow

and it's a beautiful gorge and waterfall.

So we think, if anything, the body may have been swept down the river

where it joins this one here right behind us,

which is a significant body of water today.

So yeah, the conditions aren't great

and that is a very high water level.

If he's come down this river, he might have got snagged,

so we're paying attention to just having a good look here.

That is enough to keep someone down in there.

When searching near rivers, they're dangerous.

The water is fast-flowing.

If you end up in there,

you can end up in a lot of trouble very, very quickly.

We wear the appropriate safety equipment when we're moving

in and around rivers,

but even still, it's about teamwork and looking out for each other.

We'll keep going up here, and certainly the corners,

the water flows faster.

And all these trees are snag points.

We can make a good assessment.

At that corner, see, just higher up from the stone there,

there's a nasty little fold of flowing water

that would turn anything.

And as the team moves along the river, they notice something.

So we've made a find of a piece of clothing

and it's snagged here.

Again, it's just another one of these little clues,

but we need to recover this because this might be

yet another one that will home the search area down.

What I think it is, is probably some kind of cotton,

maybe a T-shirt or a base layer.

It's had a lot of pressure on it.

It's been... Yeah.

And it fits for the snagging profile of the little trees.

So I would say up here, we'll give this a really good going-over.

That's deep enough, but...

And, in fact, it's got the kind of... Yeah.

..the bubbles. He could be in there.

We can't see into the bottom of it,

but there's definitely a potential a human could be in there

and snagged and caught in the water flow.

There's a storm coming tomorrow,

so that makes searching really difficult.

And if the water levels go up any more,

then it would just become just not sensible to be here.

With the weather closing in, Matt calls off the search for today.

When conditions improve,

a police dive team will be deployed to look for the body.

But with every passing hour, hope that the body will be found

before it is swept down into the loch is fading.

It's hugely disappointing to have to stop before you're finished.

You really want to find a person. You want to bring them home.

You still have that human wish, that duty of care,

as a mountain rescuer, to do everything you can to find them

and bring them home to that family,

to give them the closure they deserve.

In Inverness, response officer PC Marie Johnson is on shift.

She has just been called to a tragic incident at an address in the city.

So a call has come in for a person

who was unconscious and not breathing.

A unit have attended and an ambulance crew have also attended

and unfortunately, um,

the person is deceased.

Hello.

Just in this one, is it? Yeah.

Initial reports suggest a man may have died from a drugs overdose.

Marie takes a statement from the paramedic who was first on the scene.

Right. Thank you.

With county lines gangs controlling

the supply of heroin and crack into Inverness,

overdoses are becoming all too common in the city

and the surrounding Highland region.

And across Scotland,

drug death numbers are now the highest in Europe.

As the number of county lines groups are increasing,

that would suggest that the demand is increasing.

So unfortunately, what we are seeing is the number of drug addicts

and drug users, the numbers are on the increase.

With any sudden death,

the circumstances need to be investigated.

So before the man's body can be removed,

the flat needs to be searched.

Operational Support Unit have arrived

and they are conducting a search, just to ensure that

we can gather as much information as possible,

really to establish what's happened to this male.

I don't understand why we have such a big issue with drugs deaths.

What I do know is that I am meeting more drug users

with each week that passes whilst I'm in this team.

I do feel that generally speaking,

the drugs issue is just getting bigger and bigger.

This male was 39, soon to turn 40.

Somebody who's a very similar age to myself.

That is...quite hard.

These deaths are happening more and more often

and it's something that could be avoidable.

There are many drug-related deaths to younger people,

which, I mean, it's not nice to see.

It really seems a struggle for some drug users.

The addiction just seems to be so strong and so powerful

that they just... Just can't combat it.

So I feel every day that we come into work in our team,

we are strongly committed to trying to make a difference

in the war against drugs.

In Fort William,

officers Stephen Cooper and Ian Young are on duty

and on their way to investigate a suspected violent incident.

There's a guy saying he's been assaulted

by a random member on the street

because he's been walking his dog.

For whatever reason, he's decided he didn't like it.

Is that...? Surely it's not that guy.

Wouldn't have thought the guy that done it

was going to hang about, would you?

Arriving at the scene, Stephen and Ian find both the victim

and his alleged attacker waiting for them.

Hiya. How are you doing?

It's quite rare that we would come across

an incident where somebody has assaulted somebody,

and they've kind of stayed there to answer for the assault

when someone's phoned the police.

The first thing Ian needs to establish

is whether the man did attack the dog-walker.

And if so, why?

Slapped him or punched him?

It's a spaniel, to be fair.

The fact that you're telling me that and the fact that

you've stayed here, which a lot of people wouldn't.

No, I know. I mean, I get where you're coming from,

but in the same hand... Yeah, no. And that's why I'm here.

There's a couple of ways we can do things like this.

We can arrest you and take you in. Yeah.

We can report you to the court, or we can give you a warning. Yeah.

You've obviously realised it's not right, it's wrong.

You can't be just lashing out at people.

However, have you been involved with the police before? No.

Ever? No.

Just do a quick check and then I'll get the printer. Yeah.

Stephen checks the system for any previous convictions

or police warnings on the man's record.

It's important to deal with that quite quickly

because you don't want it lingering over people.

It's all about just trying to get it dealt with,

get people corrective advice

and try and prevent it from happening in the future.

It comes back clear.

That being the case, I think it's quite apt for us

to give you a police warning, which basically means that

if anything like this subsequently happened,

then we couldn't deal with it like this.

Then you'd have to come with us to the station. You'd be arrested.

While Ian deals with the assailant, Stephen checks with the victim.

He is uninjured.

The question is, will he want to press charges?

He's fully and frankly admitting what he's done.

Our proposal is to deal with it by way of a formal warning,

which goes on his record. If you're happy with that, yeah?

But as Ian is writing up the warning,

the man begins to break down.

You all right?

Hey, it's all right. Don't need to get upset!

All right?

Right.

Listen, everybody's got a lot going on.

We completely understand that, all right?

There's quite often something in the background

to these things that happen,

whether you're stressed a wee bit or... Yeah.

See if we can help.

Yeah. Just tell us.

See, if you don't want to tell us here in the middle of the street,

come and see me at the station. Yeah.

And we'll have a cup of tea and a chat about it.

But don't ever feel as if you've nobody to speak to.

All right?

You remember that we're here to help people,

not here to always get people into trouble.

But please, come and see us if you want somebody to speak to.

All right?

A significant proportion of police work these days is

led by or caused by some kind of mental health issue.

A lot of people struggle with their mental health,

and it leads them to behave in ways that, maybe not always criminal,

but we do get a lot of criminal behaviour

as a result of poor mental health.

Do you want us to take you to the hospital?

Do you need to speak to somebody?

Listen, it's all right. It's all right.

Sometimes it takes something to happen just to get some help.

All right? MAN SOBS

If it's all just gotten too much, we can take you to the hospital.

I think we'll take him to the hospital.

I'll wander down with him. Yeah. I'll wander...

Come on, grab your bag and I'll wander down with you.

And I'll let... You can get the van.

Got to have it there in our minds all the time

that we've got to be supporting these people

to try and get them help with their mental health.

And again, that's preventing further issues down the line.

Sometimes it's just a bit much. It's obviously...

And the thing is, that guy doesn't know what your thing is.

And all he sees is you in that one instant.

After accompanying the man to the local hospital,

Ian leaves him in the care of the psychiatric nurse,

who will assess him.

He maybe even didn't realise that he was under so much stress

and it's easy for people to say,

"Oh well, yeah, he's done that. He's out of order."

But he realised himself, his exact words were,

"I don't normally act like that."

So that shows you he knows he's not like that.

He's never been in trouble with the police before.

I don't think he's ever spoken to a policeman and...

Really decent young guy,

and sometimes you just need some help.

We're not just here to get people into trouble.

We need to help people as well.

And that's the kind of guy that just needs a wee bit of help.

In the hills above Loch Arkaig,

the search for the body in the river is entering its third day.

It's believed to be that of a hiker reported missing by his family

and may have been swept downstream into the loch.

An awful lot of his kit was recovered

on the way down and at the mouth here.

The stuff was pretty obvious, the foreign objects.

We were finding bits of map, rucksacks, loads of stuff.

The river is fast-flowing and deep.

So today, in addition to the mountain rescue team,

Matt has called in police divers, trained to search in dangerous water.

When we were last here, water level was at least maybe a metre,

a couple of metres up.

So ideally, we want to find him.

His body is still missing and we're keen to get that back

to the family as soon as we can.

So that's probably... That's probably further up.

Where we're standing at the moment is pretty much the point that

two witnesses had found a body, but by the time

they were able to get out and raise the alarm to the police,

and we could get here, the body had washed away.

So this is us back now.

The water level has dropped considerably.

Some of the pools that the divers are looking into

relatively easily with snorkels and masks today,

we just couldn't see into before at all.

The team is focusing on sections of the river where they previously

found items of clothing and kit.

In this area, there's quite a lot of deep pooling and rocks,

and this could actually catch a body

or any of the property that's missing.

So it's just making sure that

we get all the deeper pools in here searched.

While the divers search the river,

Matt is trying to work out where and why the man might have fallen in.

So that's a big increase in noise,

which suggests something to see and a potential viewpoint.

Yeah. And suddenly, this is the most beautiful part.

Yeah.

So, you know, if you were going to come down and take a photo and slip...

Yeah. ..this is the place, isn't it?

For me, that waterfall is the likely point of entry.

Both paths, either side of the river, come really close to it.

If you took the wrong slip on that path,

you would probably end up in the water there. The gorge.

Yeah, absolutely. It's very, very slidey.

Then, as the divers make their way downriver towards the loch,

one of them spots something in the pool below the waterfall.

DIVERS SHOUT

The dive team have a find.

So at this point, we don't know what it is.

It looks like an article of clothing.

It's quite far down, so about two metres.

So they're just working on getting down to it.

It's a difficult find with a black item down there.

It appears they've found a jacket.

What we have to do now is figure out the brand.

And then we can check and see if that ties in with

what he was wearing at the time.

Fjallraven.

Men's large, Fjallraven.

The make of jacket matches the one the family said he was wearing...

..but it doesn't necessarily mean the body is close by.

We know from the water flow that

it has been carrying things down the water,

and unfortunately, once a body settles into the loch,

it's potential that it can never be found again.

In any search, you will reach the point

where you have to scale back the search,

effectively stop it.

By that stage, we will have expected

to have explored every lead that we could,

carried out all the inquiry that we could,

and that from a search perspective,

that every resource that we could put to it feasibly, proportionately.

We can't search forever.

The volunteer mountain rescue teams can't search forever.

But when we step back from a search, we do so knowing that we've done

everything we feasibly could in the circumstances,

for them and for their families.

As the team finishes searching the final stretch of river,

it seems increasingly likely that the body has been washed downstream

and lost in the depths of this huge body of water.

Telling a family is very, very difficult,

and picking up the phone and having that conversation

is something that you'll never forget as a police officer,

because it's at that stage that you're really telling that family

that there might be a chance that they're never brought home.

And that's an exceptionally difficult thing to tell a family.

As a human being, as a mountain rescuer,

you want to bring that person home.

It's why you do what it is you do.

You'll never forget about that person.

It will always be at the back of your mind

that you've not brought them home.

Rising 4,000ft above sea level,

the Cairngorms is Britain's highest mountain range

and a major snow sports destination.

On shift today are PCs Jamie Emburey and Ross Nairn.

They've had a call about someone

who could be in trouble on the slopes.

There's actually been an avalanche today.

The mountain leader has contacted us to advise us of this,

so we're going to head up there.

The person who's reported it witnessed the avalanche

and seen a dark object go through it.

A member of the public had seen a skier climbing up

a particular slope, heard a loud rumble,

looked over and seen an avalanche occur.

Couldn't confirm 100%, but believed that possibly one person

had been swept away by this avalanche and had gone down

potentially several hundred metres down the slope.

There'll be avalanches on the mountains

a lot more than I think people appreciate.

There's probably about 100 avalanches every season.

It's only the ones that obviously involve people

that we get notified about.

When there's a possibility someone is trapped by an avalanche,

mountain rescue launches a full search operation.

Yes, yes. If you could attach us to it.

We're making our way up there right now.

A Coastguard helicopter carries the rescue volunteers

up to investigate the avalanche site,

while Ross and Jamie oversee the operation from the ground.

As police, the onus is on us to try and find

as many resources as possible to throw onto that hill.

Time is critical in these things.

If they're trapped under the snow, they're not going to have

a long time before they're going to suffocate.

So we're just going to pull into the mountain rescue team

base station here, and hopefully somebody will be here.

There is lights on. Yeah.

The team here have been in touch with the witness,

who sheds more light on what they think they've spotted on the mountain.

Well, it sounds like there's been a couple of skiers skiing

and self-triggered an avalanche.

Kind of sounds like there's one fully buried.

Aircraft's there, we've got a team. Still waiting for confirmation.

It sounds pretty big.

Cheers.

As the rescue team heads to the avalanche site

to look for any skiers trapped in the snow,

Jamie and Ross drive up to the helicopter landing site

at the ski centre to monitor the situation.

It sounds like there will be a full team deployment.

We leave it in their hands because, you know,

they can't send officers up onto the hill.

Um, you know, we're not mountain rescue trained.

We'd be more of a hindrance, a liability than anything else.

Hi, there. How are you doing?

Are you part of the MRT?

No, I'm around here, mountain rescue team are down there.

So they're up at the main resort?

A helicopter landed to pick some of them up, I think.

Right. They're probably heading in. No bother.

We'll go up to the resort and see what's happening there, then.

Yeah. I'll be right there in a wee while. No bother, chap.

On the way up, they spot another danger approaching.

That looks a bit white in terms of fog.

It does, doesn't it?

We've got the sun up there, but that mist coming in,

that's not going to help.

You can see how bad it's getting and we've only been...

We've just come up here.

It'll be absolutely Baltic up there.

I don't think we're going to get up there in this. No.

If someone's caught in an avalanche and it happens early in the day,

they've got, obviously, probably a better chance of survival.

It's essential before nightfall to get there and try

and get as much of a search completed before we lose the light,

because once the light's gone, we're just going to be

relying on torches and it's just pitch black.

You know, it can be very challenging.

I mean, it looks quite pleasant to the left,

but with the mist coming in there, that's just going to drop.

The temperature's already about -4 at the moment.

It's supposed to drop to -6 overnight.

And where they are, the temperature is likely to be considerably colder.

That is coming in quite quick.

It's just going to engulf this area in a second.

With the temperature dropping and the mist rolling in,

if any skiers are trapped in the snow,

they need to be found before it's too late.

In Inverness, the police have intercepted a package in the post.

It could be a breakthrough in their ongoing battle

against county lines drug gangs.

The Royal Mail sorting office,

I think they were a bit suspicious about the package,

maybe a number of packages that have been coming in recently.

And a police dog has been in the Royal Mail sorting office

and has basically indicated on the package.

If I flip it over, I've got to be careful, you see,

not to handle it too much because it is going for testing.

From my experience, it would appear to me to be crack cocaine.

And I have no doubt that when it's tested,

it will come back as crack.

Our assessment at this time is that this is linked

to a particular Liverpool-based county lines group

operating in Inverness.

The county lines groups tend to deal with it

in a 0.2g crack cocaine deal,

and they sell for about £20.

And from what we're seeing here, that's potentially a lot of deals,

taking this out of the system,

that can't be dealt tonight or tomorrow or the next day.

But I've got no doubt, knowing what these county lines groups are like,

they'll probably replace this pretty quick.

Some of the groups we have in Inverness,

we assess are generating between £3,000 and £4,000 a day

from drug supply.

So the likes of this, we're estimating worth

between maybe £12,000 or £15,000.

So to them, it's probably a drop in the ocean, really.

Um... But for us, it's a fantastic result.

It also means that hopefully some lives are being saved this week

and hopefully preventing potential overdoses.

It's a win for the police,

but the method by which the drugs were concealed

points to a professional operation.

The package has arrived with a cardboard box

which has a TV remote on the front.

The person who sent it might have thought that the remote

control in the box might have thrown off the scanner,

so they might have seen that it's just some sort

of electronic device being sent up here,

as opposed to the heat sealed package containing

all the crack cocaine and the heroin.

These groups know that the police are onto them.

There are many ways in which they can take their drugs

up into Inverness.

So what we have found is they might have the controlled substances

banked inside of them internally, and they'll use a train

and come up to Inverness.

But also more recently what we've seen are drugs

being posted to Inverness.

Now, I wonder if that's because there's been quite good

interceptions in vehicles and persons on trains and buses

that the county lines groups have changed their tactics

and now what they've taken to doing is posting their drugs

up to Inverness in preparation for their runner

to deal the drugs up here.

The package also gives vital clues about where the suspects might be.

So the really handy thing with a package is there's always

an address as to where it's being sent,

and quite often there's tracking information

as to who sent the package.

So thankfully for me in this inquiry,

we have got tracking details,

but I often find myself working alongside Merseyside Police.

A lot of county lines originate within their force area,

and because of that, these forces in England are always really keen

to assist us.

A package being posted to Inverness with drugs within it

and sent by someone within Liverpool,

I can guarantee you that within probably 24 hours

I'll have had a response from Merseyside.

This is the CCTV that they've managed to capture.

This is the package here.

The same package we had in Inverness.

Paid for in cash, of course, and untraceable.

We see quite a wad of cash.

I'll definitely be looking at executing a warrant

at the intended address.

And then, depending on if we can identify who has sent

the package from outwith Inverness, we'd definitely be looking

at maybe some warrants elsewhere.

But Duncan needs to act fast.

As soon as the dealers realise the package has been intercepted,

they'll almost certainly move to a different address.

I think they're on the ground now at the site,

so hopefully we'll get an update as to if someone is actually

trapped underneath the snow.

In Aviemore, as the light fades, the search for a skier

who could have been caught in an avalanche is continuing.

The Police Mountain Rescue team radios with an update.

Skiers obviously leave quite distinct tracks in the snow,

because that would clarify straight away if there was a skier

caught in the avalanche.

And after taking a closer look,

the Police Mountain Rescue team comes to a decision.

At this moment in time, it looks like there's going to be

a stand down from the mountain, and no-one has been swept away

or buried in the snow.

So it's a good result.

The mountain rescue team, they did a full sweep of the area.

There was no persons trapped or needing any assistance.

So it turned out to be a false call, which was a relief to everybody.

I don't know why this person was walking this way.

But as Jamie and Ross start heading back to the station,

they come across another emergency.

Just wondering if he's maybe jumped out of his garden.

Well, maybe. But I can't do anything with him. Yeah.

Where there's a dog on the loose,

a worried owner usually isn't far behind.

Have you lost a dog? It's in the field.

He seems to have made a new friend.

What happened?

I literally went to turn away and he just disappeared.

I think the dog owner has arrived.

Luke, Luke!

Good boys. Thank you!

Who's that? He doesn't care.

He just wants to see me cry!

Bless. What's the name?

Brax. Brax. Is it going to end in tears?

I can feel it now.

It's going to be pain.

I'm sorry.

He was like one minute behind me. The next...

So the tears are currently almost frozen.

Brax! Brax, Brax! Brax!

Brax!

Right, if you get your dog, Brax will come over.

Hello! Brax! Brax!

Brax was just totally in a bromance with this other dog,

for whatever reason.

You never know what you're going to quite expect in this job!

One minute you're dealing with an avalanche

and a potential skier buried under snow,

and the next you've got a lively lab

that wants to go and make a new friend!

Finally, after some resistance, Jamie can reunite the dog

with his owner.

I think we need cuffs for dogs! Right, shoop, shoop, shoop shoop!

Go round. Come on. Good boy.

He's got a serious crush on this other dog.

Thank you, guys. Are you quite close?

I just live there. Right. OK. Thank you so much.

I'm sorry for wasting your time. Oh, don't you worry.

You enjoy. Thank you.

It's funny how this job goes from, like, really serious incidents,

to not so serious!

100 miles off the north coast of Scotland

lie the Shetland Islands,

where today, preparations for Up Helly Aa,

the annual Viking fire festival, are in full swing.

Everyone's getting ready for Up Helly Aa.

It's just, yeah, everyone loves it. It means the world.

People just love it so much.

Buzzing for everything.

Shetland's capital, Lerwick, has a population of about 7,500,

but over 10,000 are expected to attend the festival.

So a team of 20 officers has been drafted in from the mainland

to support the local cops for what is, without a doubt,

a unique policing challenge.

All right, cool, folks. Thanks very much for this.

This is the briefing for Up Helly Aa.

It's one of the ten fire festivals that are run here

in Shetland each year.

The main event is obviously the evening parade.

That brings risk, obviously, because each of them

will be in possession of a lit torch and we're due high winds

by about two or three o'clock in the morning,

between 70 and 80 miles an hour.

So there's a weather warning in place.

All right, guys, thank you very much.

The Up Helly Aa has been running now for over a hundred years.

It's attended by around about a thousand Vikings,

there ultimately to celebrate the Norse, the Norwegian history,

of Shetland itself.

We were originally at one point, many centuries ago, part of Norway.

So there's a real strong bond there.

As well as the officers from the mainland,

a few other cops on shift tonight are new to Shetland and its customs,

like Sergeant Davie Carmichael, who moved here two years ago.

It's a big night for us.

It's a big night for the community, as you'll see just shortly,

how much they enjoy themselves, take it very seriously.

Prior to coming here, I was an officer down in Lanarkshire

for 16 years. I did most of my service down there.

And the differences from working on an island

to there are just unimaginable.

From the way the community react to us is very different.

And coming here was like a breath of fresh air for me.

It ignited my love for my job again, to be honest with you,

coming here. It reminds you of what community policing

is all about, really, is going out there engaging with the community.

So it's certainly an event like no other.

Oh, no, you're not going to get this elsewhere.

How's yourself? Hi.

Are yous drunk yet, boys? No, no. No, no.

Looking forward to...? Once the pressure's off!

Yeah, yeah. All right. If you need us,

you know where we are. All right? Perfect. All right. Cheers, now.

Up Helly Aa is all about everybody in the community getting together,

having a really good time and not knowing where the night might go.

Yeah, yeah. Pretty much in a nutshell.

It's a flameless torch, and something called a Yggdrasil.

That's the Old Norse for it. And a light-up hat.

This year, the police have brought in some new rules to help

keep the festival safe.

I will be sitting here.

The parade kind of starts off just behind us.

They take a bit of explaining to the traditional minded Vikings.

I cannae. I'm going to sit here.

I'm going to be 50 metres in front of the parade.

Is it? I don't know, he just gave us a briefing on that.

Have a good one.

When it comes to the festival itself,

we have got a responsibility to them.

It's a safe community for them.

They appreciate that we've got a job to do, but we also appreciate

that they're out there to enjoy themselves, and they're going to try

and keep the Up Helly Aa as traditional as it possibly can.

When's this car is going to leave the parade? You'll be well away.

Sam and I will be at the front of the parade,

and he'll be way ahead. You won't see him, all right?

There'll be one at the back as well.

But again, that'll be away at the back.

And you won't see him either. That's fine.

I just need confirmation. No, no, it's fine. All right?

With the plan clear for the parade, it's time for the main feature,

and hazard, of the night to spark into life - the flaming torches.

Standing in a dark street with the wind blowing,

there's a bit of rain blowing, there's no street lights on,

so it's really, really dark.

And suddenly, within less than ten seconds,

100 flares are lit, a thousand torches burn off the back of that,

and suddenly the street is lit up.

The heat, the smell.

That atmosphere is absolutely incredible.

You have to look at the risk.

You're talking a thousand torches burning away.

And I think anywhere else in the UK or Scotland,

health and safety would have a hairy fit,

considering you've got 10,000 people in the town centre.

CHEERING

This is Shetland. Welcome to the north of Scotland!

The smell, it's...

..just like burning fence posts.

No issues whatsoever.

All good.

Now look at that. What a sight!

150 years in the making.

A year in the planning. 35 minutes of walking.

And they're about to set this galleon on fire,

which they've spent a year building.

It's not a regular night in the Highlands, is it?

Not a regular night anywhere!

In Inverness, detectives are preparing for an early morning raid

on an address linked to the intercepted package of drugs.

They believe a county lines gang could have taken over the property.

Thanks very much for the early start.

Any questions?

This could be a breakthrough for the police.

For weeks, they've been on the back foot in their fight

against the increasingly violent drug gangs.

If they move fast, and with enough force,

that could be about to change.

You just have to be prepared for anything if you're going

through these doors.

These groups aren't afraid to use weapons,

they've threatened to stab officers, will punch you, kick you.

People do anything they can when they're desperate to get away.

Straight, and it's that one with the light on.

There they are there.

Go, go, go, go, go.

FORCEFUL BLOWS ON DOOR

Police! Police!

Police!

Police!

One secure.

First floor secure!

The police have identified the woman they believe is being exploited

by the gang.

And two of the county lines gang members have been found inside.

Finally, it's the result the police have been hoping for.

It appears that there's two Liverpudlians.

They'll get taken back to the police station.

Before being taken in,

one suspect is allowed a supervised visit to the toilet,

which proves quite revealing.

Yeah, the male's behaviour when we came in the house,

as soon as we got him in the cuffs, he immediately asked

to go and use the toilet.

They said there's some form of residue within his boxers,

which could indicate that there's stuff internally banked,

and there's a box of condoms.

That is what they would tend to use if they are banking

to keep everything within one package when it's inside them.

With the suspects in cuffs and on their way to custody,

Ashley and the team can search the house for evidence of drug dealing.

They will generally take over a room or an area of a house.

Those two will be the only two trusted with the product

and the money. The occupier won't have a say in it.

Finding drugs in a flat like this can be challenging.

So, Chief, the drug search dog, has been brought in to assist.

Police dogs are very important to us.

These groups who operate in the illegal drug world,

they know that it's hard for us to find small wraps of drugs

or small packages in a house that can be very messy.

The drugs dogs, they will scan the property and then we can go in

and take a further look.

Good boy. Good lad.

Oh, hundreds in there, boy.

What's in here, son?

Top drawer. Grab that in there.

Got a lot of rocks and stuff like that.

So this is the room that these boys were located in,

which they're probably staying in whilst they're here.

A bowl of wraps.

And there's a quantity of cash.

So that will be suspected Class A, crack cocaine and heroin,

along with the proceeds of the drug dealing

and the scales there have got the white powder on them

where they're probably weighing out how much goes into one deal.

That's like a deal. And you've got that much.

It's not even half a day's work for the group, though, you know?

They'll be getting reloads like that two or three times a day

to keep them going.

So you can see how they make their money.

As the cops tally up their findings, it's clear how lucrative

the county lines business can be.

£1,800 here.

Along with quite a wee bit of drugs as well.

It's not only the drugs and cash that show the effect

on this community.

In the living room, the team uncovers several weapons,

including knives, knuckle dusters, and a large sword.

Not only are you, you know, you're taking drugs off the street,

you're seizing weapons that can be used in violent crime.

And it's just that constant kind of feeling of you might actually

be doing something good.

With two suspects under arrest and the county lines gang disrupted,

the community has one less threat to worry about.

I would love to see an Inverness that's free of drug dealing

and free of county lines gangs in particular,

because they do bring a lot of violence and dangerous subjects

end up coming up to Inverness, who we've never experienced before.

Now, I know that addiction is really, really difficult

to break away from, but I do think it's important that ourselves,

the police and the health service can work together to try

and help these persons who are afflicted by addiction.

This is a nationwide, UK wide problem.

These groups, you know, they're all over the place.

There is... I don't think you will ever stop it.

We just have to do our best to prevent it as much as possible.

So we really rely on people having the confidence and the trust

in us to approach us and let us know what's going on.

We have to work together to try and solve the problem.

Next time, in South Uist...

detectives are searching the scene of a serious assault.

In Shetland, police arrest a man on suspicion of threatening

a staff member at a local pharmacy.

Who's made an allegation against me?

Tell me your name and I'll say yes or no.

And in Glen Coe, a full scale mountain rescue operation

is getting under way.

There's been a rucksack found.

It's just whether he's anywhere near it.

Where is he?