Latest news with #TinaSatchwell
RTÉ News
10-07-2025
- RTÉ News
940 missing: Are there lessons from the Gaine or Satchwell cases?
Gardaí are reviewing the initial investigations into the cases of Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine – both were treated as missing persons enquiries before being reclassified as murder investigations. In each, initial searches failed to locate them. Tina Satchwell was later found buried under the stairs of her home and Michael Gaine's remains were discovered on his farm, not far from where his jeep was parked. These are just two of the latest cases where missing people were eventually found close to where they were last seen, after extensive searches. An Garda Síochána told Prime Time that 940 people are currently listed as missing on the Garda Pulse system. So could some of them be found, if fresh thinking, new tools, or different investigative techniques were applied? For 17 years Barry Coughlan's body rested in his car, upside down on the riverbed five metres from a pier in Crosshaven in county Cork. The 23-year-old was last seen alive less than 100 metres from where his body lay hidden by water. His disappearance was totally out of character. His sister Donna remembers a younger brother who was full of life. "He was a trawlerman. He'd work for weeks and then he'd come home for a little break. But he spent most of his time at sea." She said Barry was working hard and saving for a mortgage, "Barry was very easygoing. He loved socialising. He loved his job. His job was his life." Donna was 18 months older than Barry. It was just the two of them growing up, with no other brothers or sisters, and she said he "was a massive massive part of my life." "We were closer as adults. When Barry disappeared, I had two small children. I can't even explain what it's like. From 2004 my life was consumed by a missing person, from my twenties to my forties." Donna Coughlan spoke to Prime Time in the wake of the recent cases of Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine. Each case struck a particular chord with the Coughlan family, given similarities with their anguish. Barry's body lay undiscovered for 17 years, just a stone's throw from where he was last sighted. The search for Barry Barry was last seen leaving the Moonduster Pub close to the harbour in Crosshaven on 30 April 2004. His Toyota Corolla vanished along with him. The initial search for Barry and his car involved an extensive search of land in the area, and also a search of the water in the River Owenabue, where the river mouth opens up into the harbour in the village. It was natural that searchers would explore the local waters, given Barry disappeared so close to the river. There were a number of locations where a car might have entered the water. But despite searches in 2004, and subsequent searches down the years, no trace of Barry was found. That was until volunteers returned in 2021 with a new sonar to search waters they previously searched without success. Donna says she is thankful to gardaí who also stuck with Barry's case down the years, but says there must be lessons from cases when missing persons are found in circumstances like her brother's. "The guards came straight away. They did help us, but I just feel that they didn't have enough resources and they weren't experienced enough in a missing person case. They didn't know where to start, just like ourselves. We didn't know where to start." The Coughlan family spent years following up leads. They visited every fishing port in Ireland, and they travelled to homeless shelters in the UK. People phoned in tips to the Garda Confidential Line as to where Barry might be, and the family and gardaí pursued the leads, but they led nowhere. The Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery group were long aware of Barry's case. The team of 20 volunteers have recovered the bodies of a number of missing persons. They operate 365 days a year. With a number of the volunteers having been touched by tragedy down the years, they are driven to find people, they are relentless. On the morning of 26 May 2021, a team of volunteers went searching in Crosshaven. It was a good day to search as local fishermen had steamed up to Cork city to hold a protest about the EU Common Fisheries Policy. It meant the water in the Owenabue was more still than usual, and it meant the volunteers deploying a sonar into the water could be done quietly, with little fuss. "We headed out west to Camden Fort Meagher and then deployed the sonar out there," said Christy O'Donovan, one of the volunteers. Christy shows Prime Time the sonar, an orange-coloured piece of underwater kit which is about a foot long. "It's a towed sonar, the Starfish 990 F. We put it out the back of the boat. It works best when about three metres from the bottom of the river or sea bed and it gives a scan twenty metres either direction," he told Prime Time. "That day we were travelling slowly, we were crawling, going two or three knots. We were searching about an hour along the coastline, when we came along by Hugh Coveney Pier, and that's when I saw something on the screen. It was manmade, I felt it was a car." The day of the sonar 'indication', and back on land and after studying the images over and over, a decision was made to send down a dive team with two volunteers – Dave Varian and Dave O'Leary – descending to the riverbed. "They were down maybe three or four minutes and Dave Varian came up with a partial number plate - 98 C." The divers went down again and retrieved a hubcap. Back on the pier Barry's brother-in-law Kieran scraped away the dirt to reveal the hubcap came from a Toyota Carolla. That night the volunteers stayed on the pier, not wanting to leave Barry alone any longer. "He was alone and missing for 17 years. We stayed on the pier, we lit a candle," said Christy. It was the following day that the car was brought to the surface by the Garda Water Unit. Barry's remains were still inside the vehicle. "I'm very sad, you know, that he wasn't found sooner. Because he was so close," Donna Coughlan told Prime Time. Last November an inquest jury found that Barry's death by drowning was accidental. Barry's case is not the first in county Cork where the body of a missing person was found in their car years after they disappeared. In March 1990 Fermoy businessman William Fennessy disappeared. It wasn't until 2012 that his body was found by chance in his car which was located in the river Blackwater by members of a local volunteer Search and Rescue team conducting a routine dive. And yet mystery still surrounds the whereabouts of a Toyota Cressida and its owners, Conor and Sheila Dwyer, a married couple who vanished from Fermoy in April 1991. Given the lessons in the cases of William Fennessy and Barry Coughlan, it has long been considered possible that the Dwyers may rest in their vehicle, wherever it is. In the meantime, while An Garda Síochána investigate - and have a lot of their own search equipment, including types of sonar - the access some search tools which have given families like the Coughlans answers after decades, comes through volunteers like Christy O'Donovan. Tina Satchwell's case Fermoy was also the location where now convicted murderer Richard Satchwell tried to pull the wool over the eyes of Gardaí. It was at the local Garda station, four days after he murdered his wife, that he reported Tina had left their home. The recent trial, which led to his conviction, heard how the first search of the couple's home in Youghal in June 2017 had failed to find any trace of Tina. The second search of the property, six years later, in October 2023, found Tina's body buried beneath concrete under the stairs. The first search did not use a cadaver dog. An Garda Síochána does not have its own cadaver dog. For the second search detectives borrowed a dog – Fern – who travelled to county Cork with her handler from the PSNI. Fern showed significant interest in the bottom steps of the stairs of the property, close to where Tina's body was later found. Meeting Fern At the PSNI training facility in County Antrim, five-year-old Fern and her handler Alan Ward, gave me a demonstration of her search capabilities. Mr Ward hid two human teeth in amongst small stones and, after a few moments Fern found them, lay down quiet and still beside the teeth, not touching them, but leaning her nose right beside them. She only released from that pose when Mr Ward gave a command, and she was then given a tennis ball to play with. It's both surreal and impressive that the important work that Fern does is rewarded simply by a play with a ball. "Fern is five, she was five in March, and she was a rescue dog" said Alan as he walked alongside a very sprightly Fern. "She's a little bit mad as all springers are. Mad keen to work." Fern is trained to detect dead bodies, body parts and body fluids. Mr Ward and Fern gave me a second demonstration where she found a bloodied piece of gauze hidden beneath a couch. Fern has assisted Gardaí on a number of recent searches for bodies of missing persons believed to have been murdered. Most recently she attended the scene of an unsuccessful search in Clondalkin in west Dublin where detectives were trying to find the body of Annie McCarrick who vanished in Dublin in 1993. Calls to improve search methods Now retired Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan, the man who headed up the newly established Garda Cold Case Unit in the 2000s, has a very clear view about the need to improve the investigative tools at the disposal of Gardaí. "I would certainly believe that we should have our own cadaver dog within An Garda Síochána. We shouldn't have to be going to other police organisations," Mr Mangan told Prime Time. "The PSNI are very giving, but we should have our own cadaver dog that could be utilised within 24 hours, have a dog available to the senior investigating officer." There are cadaver dogs privately owned in the Republic of Ireland. Such dogs have been utilised by Gardaí for certain missing person searches but it seems that when a crime is suspected in a missing persons case investigators prefer to have a 'police' dog. As a result, Fern is getting more and more requests to travel to the Republic. While cadaver dogs and sonar equipment are tools which have proven themselves invaluable in missing persons cases, Christy Mangan says that the human input is most important. His view is the onus is on Gardaí, but also giving officers adequate resources. "At a very early point there's always a golden hour in any investigation, and it's usually in the first 24 hours. And you get in amongst the people who know the person. It's about having an eye for detail and taking action very, very quickly, not waiting six, twelve months, or years," Mr Mangan said. He said peer reviews such as those recently directed by the Garda Commissioner into the Tina Satchwell and Michael Gaine investigations is something to be welcomed. "It's not a marking of your work by somebody else. It's somebody coming in and saying, listen, maybe you would do something differently here. A peer review is there to assist the senior investigating officer to bring the investigation to a conclusion. If somebody told me somebody was coming in to do a peer review of my work, I would be very welcoming of it." In his career, Mr Mangan oversaw a number of missing persons cases and reclassified a number as murder investigations. This allowed for CCTV and phone records to be obtained, and for search warrants to be secured. He says Garda management should look at changing procedures to ensure valuable leads aren't lost during missing persons cases in the early stages, due to how personnel are assigned. "For missing persons cases to be treated with the urgency that they require and deserve, I would be suggesting that you would appoint a senior investigating officer from day one." "That the person gone missing is not somebody who goes missing every day of the week there, that there's something in the background that has caused them to go missing - get the senior investigating officer in place." "Hopefully the person turns up within a day or two, and then everybody goes back to normal. But if that's not done, missed opportunities happen, unfortunately." An Garda Síochána told Prime Time that, as of this week, a total of 940 people were listed as missing on the Garda Pulse system. A spokesperson said: "Missing person investigations are subject to ongoing review at Superintendent level, ensuring the risk associated with the investigation is assessed, all appropriate investigative actions are pursued, and the necessary resources are allocated as required." "The Superintendent, or assigned Senior Investigating Officer, where appropriate, determines the direction of any investigation and requests whatever supports are deemed necessary." Having lived through the long wait for answers, Donna Coughlan wants other families not to lose hope and investigators to treat the earliest hours of a disappearance as critical. "More needs to be done at the beginning because you know that, that time is vital, and the majority of people that go missing are within a very close radius of where they go missing," Donna said. "I just want to give hope to all the families that have long term missing people. Don't give up. I never expected that my brother would be found after 17 years, not in a million years."
Irish Times
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Evan Fitzgerald case shows why gardaí cannot operate on a ‘trust us' basis
The truism that policing exists in a state of perpetual controversy punctuated by crises has been brought into sharp focus recently. Controversies involving An Garda Síochána and the cases of Tina Satchwell (Dingivan), Michael Gaine and now Evan Fitzgerald are, to put it mildly, concerning. It must irritate conscientious and professional gardaí to listen to those of us who do not have to contend with the varied and enormous challenges of policing as we comment with the benefit of hindsight or opine from a position of academic expertise. But the unique nature of policing and the exceptional powers vested in sworn police officers require that a policing service is accountable whenever there is a question mark over its competence. Effective oversight and accountability are not an impediment to policing. These are, indeed, a necessary condition if it is to be done effectively. It is simply untenable to seek to operate on a 'trust us' basis. Trust must be earned and not presumed and it must never be taken for granted even if surveys show a high degree of public trust in policing. READ MORE To operate as an accountable policing service, Garda management must be comfortable with the duty to provide evidence-based justification in various settings where transparency is required. To be fair, the current Garda Commissioner has been diligent in his engagement with the Policing Authority (now the PCSA) and Oireachtas committees. His successor will also have to engage, perhaps less visibly, with the newly established Board of An Garda Síochána. The media play a crucial role in ensuring robust accountability. But an appropriate balance is not always maintained between crime stories that are clearly Garda-sourced and investigative journalism that probes issues of competence or corruption in relation to policing. Garda representative bodies will squander whatever political capital they have if they do not engage in a more constructive manner with the new commissioner Both can coexist, but there is self-evidently a prevalence of what is called 'copaganda' in much coverage of crime and criminal justice matters. Influencing or shaping media coverage of crime is no proxy for accountability. Recently acknowledged improvements in the reliability and credibility of Garda crime data should be the primary basis upon which An Garda Síochána presents in the public square, not manipulative or salacious briefings. However, it is unlikely that these can ever be eliminated as a news currency of value. The Tina Satchwell (Dingivan) case is now being reviewed at the request of the Garda Commissioner with a report to be presented in due course to the Policing and Community Safety Authority and the Minister for Justice. The Michael Gaine murder investigation, which is live, is being peer-reviewed in a routine manner. The Evan Fitzgerald case – in which, thankfully, a higher victim count was avoided – raises a number of disturbing questions . On what basis was the young man from Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, assessed as sufficiently low risk for gardaí to consent to bail being granted? Why did it take the public intervention of the judge involved to correct a media report that gardaí had objected to bail being granted? Why did it take until the Garda Commissioner appeared before an Oireachtas committee for the story to emerge that non-functioning ammunition had been supplied to Fitzgerald by An Garda Síochána in a controlled delivery as part of an undercover operation? On what basis did Fiosrú (formerly Gsoc ) reach the conclusion, in uncharacteristically quick time, that no further investigation was required? The recruitment of a new Garda Commissioner presents an opportunity, within the framework of new structures that should have been in place much sooner, to address problems of policing culture that have frustrated the efforts of the current commissioner to drive a reform agenda. The role of the new Garda Board will be of vital importance in this connection, and if there are tensions between Garda management and the board, that could actually be a positive sign. Garda representative bodies will squander whatever political capital they may have if they do not engage in a more constructive manner with the new commissioner. Maintaining an oppositional stance to reforms that have been implemented and are unlikely to be reversed is futile. Personalising disagreements with garda management is a waste of energy. In the period from 2017-2018 when the Commission on the Future of Policing consulted with rank-and-file members of An Garda Síochána and middle management, it was crystal clear that there was a keen appetite for reform within the policing service. Many ideas put forward, especially by younger gardaí, were excellent and were adopted enthusiastically by the commission. The time lost in implementing the recommendations of the commission is regrettable, but many of the reforms implemented – which are probably not as transformational as sometimes claimed – provide a solid basis upon which to proceed with a degree of confidence. The new commissioner will start with an unenviable list of ongoing controversies. Their job is to ensure that these do not become crises. This is a slightly better context than the one in which the current commissioner commenced his tenure, which was, most definitely, a context of deep crisis. Donncha O'Connell is an established professor of law in University of Galway. He was a member of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland
Irish Examiner
14-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
How a dog called Fern solved the mystery of where Cork woman Tina Satchwell had been hidden
When Fern made a positive detection for the presence of human remains in the home of Richard and Tina Satchwell, the dog helped unravel the mystery of where the missing woman had been hidden for more than six years. After Richard Satchwell was sentenced to life in prison for the 2017 murder of his wife, the role of Fern in the case and the absence of a cadaver dog in An Garda Síochána's dog unit has raised hackles, led to soundbites and sparked debate on why the Irish force had to rely on the PSNI's only cadaver dog. Use of Fern in October 2023 for the search of Ms Satchwell's Youghal home was not the only time the services of a cadaver dog were requested by gardaí during the probe into her disappearance. The first time was in 2018, when Ronnie, a dog from Britain, was brought to Castlemartyr for a woodland search after information led gardaí to concentrate on the area. Mick Swindells has worked on a number of other high-profile cases in Ireland, including a search of the Slieve Bloom mountains for Fiona Pender in 2014. Ronnie's handler, Mick Swindells, a former British police officer, recalls staying in Garryvoe during the 2018 search, and says the approach came from gardaí because of his work with the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains, set up to find the bodies of people murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles. He has worked on a number of other high-profile cases in Ireland, including a search of the Slieve Bloom mountains for Fiona Pender in 2014. She has been missing since 1996 and her case was recently upgraded to a murder investigation. He became involved in human remains detection in 1992 when working with the dogs section in Lancashire police. He has handled five cadaver dogs in his career, but also trained dogs in Britain as well as in the Malaysian and Spanish fire services, and Spanish police. He pointed out training dogs to find human remains in water is different to training them to find buried remains 'because they can smell scent coming through the water'. For land searches, probes are used to prod the ground to release any odours which could indicate if human remains are buried in the area. He stressed, however, that the manner of a person's death can have an impact on the scent, explaining: 'Somebody who has been poisoned will decompose differently to somebody who has shot or stabbed, if there is trauma. "Indeed, the size of a person and the type of soil they have been put in also changes decomposition — also, if there were clothes, or they were wrapped in a shower curtain or carpet or that kind of thing.' He said in most cases, people do not have time to bury remains very deep — although he acknowledged cases like the Tina Satchwell case were different. During the recent trial, the jury heard her body had been buried unusually deep for a 'clandestine burial', with 84cm depth to the bottom of the burial site. 'He [Satchwell] was in his own house so he controlled the environment, whereas when you are burying bodies in woods … even the IRA didn't bury bodies deep and they had control of the areas. In his own house, he could take his time, he wasn't going to be disturbed,' Mr Swindells said. In his work, cadaver dogs are trained on pigs. He explains why: 'If you train a dog to find Semtex and you hide a block of Semtex, it won't change. But, obviously, a dead body evolves and is always changing. So we have to try to train the dog to find a body from, for example, one day after death to 25 years after death when it is just pure skeletal. So you have to train the dog on every aspect of the decomposition and the only way you can do that is by using pigs. It is similar decomposition.' A pig dressed in a coat and placed in a grave. Mick Swindells says the coat has been put on the pig to simulate a real concealment, for the purpose of training a cadaver dog. He says pigs used for the purpose of training dogs to find human remains are buried in the ground for many years. 'We had a site in the UK where we buried pigs in 1992 and every so often we went back there with dogs if we are looking at a really old case to refresh them. Pigs are the closest thing to human because they are omnivores — pigs eat meat and vegetables the same as we do. They have the same skin type — the same number of layers of skin as we do, the same digestive system as we do.' He says the normal police course for training dogs to find human remains is eight weeks: 'The basic course is eight weeks but the dog is always learning after that.' The Search and Rescue Dog Association Ireland (North) currently has four specially trained cadaver dogs in Northern Ireland. The association's Clair O'Connor says: 'We would use archaeological bone or human blood in training. We get blood from donors.' The association, which was founded in 1978 by Cork-born Dr Neil Powell, began working in the area of human remains detection in the 1990s, after being tasked to a search for two cousins who drowned in a lake. Wexford-based Rachell Morris owns K9 Detect and Find Ireland. She and Clair O'Connor both say they have had requests to aid An Garda Síochána over the years with searches. 13/06/'25 Gardaí bring a cadaver dog into a house on Monastery Walk, Clondalkin, where they are continuing their search in the investigation into the death of American woman, Annie McCarrick, who disappeared in 1993. Picture: Colin Keegan/ Collins However, on Monday, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said there were no plans at the moment to acquire a cadaver dog for the force . He described such a dog as a very specialised resource which is not out every day working, as is the case for drugs, firearms or money dogs. He also said a cadaver dog has only been used by the force three times in the seven years he has been commissioner. It emerged at Tuesday afternoon's meeting of the Oireachtas justice committee that a cadaver dog was used in the search for Kerry farmer Mike Gaine in the early weeks of his disappearance. Mick Swindells believes the addition of a cadaver dog to An Garda Síochána's existing dog unit would not be a big cost. 'If you train them to forensics and blood and semen also, you are not restricting it to murders because you have got assault cases, rape cases, that they can be used for as well.' He rejected minister for justice Jim O'Callaghan's assertion that the working life of a cadaver dog was just three years. He said police dogs operate until they are no longer fit enough to work, with many having a work life of up to seven years, typically retiring at about nine years old. This was echoed by Clair O'Connor, who said: 'All of our search dogs would work until they are aged eight to 10 years old.' A Garda spokeswoman confirmed the force has never had its own cadaver dog. She said there were 28 dogs attached to the Garda Dog Unit, inclusive of the Southern and North Western Dog Units. There are currently four dogs in training. The statement said: 'The Garda Dog Unit has dogs trained in three distinct disciplines, namely general purpose, drugs/cash/firearms detection, and explosive detection. Dogs are trained in one discipline.' In relation to cadaver dogs, the statement said: 'The operational demand for victim recovery dogs is currently sufficiently provided for through third-party contractors or through mutual assistance with the Police Service of Northern Ireland with whom An Garda Síochána has excellent working relations.' Read More Review of Tina Satchwell case to include if cadaver dog should have been used in 2017 search — Harris
Irish Times
09-06-2025
- Irish Times
Garda not planning to invest in full-time cadaver dog, despite Minister's preference
Cadaver dogs, used to find human remains, are very rarely needed by the Garda and the force has no plans to invest in having dogs available full-time, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has said. This is despite remarks at the weekend by Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan, who said it would be 'preferable' if the Garda had its own dog in light of developments in the Tina Satchwell murder investigation. The commissioner said that in his near seven-year tenure as commissioner, he believed a cadaver dog had been used three times, with those dogs provided from Northern Ireland. While the Garda does 'not want to be entirely reliant on others', having a cadaver dog is a significant resource, especially as it would be rarely used in the Republic. 'A cadaver dog is not out every day working in the same way that a drugs or firearms or money dog would be, it's a very specialist resource,' he said, adding that even within the area of working dogs, these animals are 'specialist'. READ MORE When asked if a cadaver dog should have been deployed to help find the Satchwell remains in the period immediately after she was reported missing in 2017, the commissioner said the murder investigation is being reviewed. 'But from what I know from the reports I've seen ... the suspicion was harm had been caused to Tina Satchwell, but there was no suspicion that her body was actually there [in her home].' Satchwell, née Dingivan (45), was murdered by her husband Richard Satchwell at their home on Grattan Street, Youghal, on March 19th-20th, 2017, and her body was buried under the house in a deep grave. However, her remains were not found until October 2013, some 6½ years later. Though the Satchwell house was searched in 2017, a cadaver dog was not used. However, when a dog was deployed during a search of the house in 2023 it focused on the area under the sittingroom stairs, where the body was later found. Asked on RTÉ's This Week programme whether such a dog should have been brought into the Satchwell home in 2017 during the investigation, the Mr O'Callaghan said 'probably, it should have happened'. He said he spoke to the commissioner about the effectiveness of cadaver dogs. 'They're a very specialised dog in terms of trying to train them. There is one on the island of Ireland; the PSNI has one,' he said. 'That dog is sought by many police forces in Britain as well. We got the use of the dog here and he was of much assistance. 'It obviously would be preferable if we had a cadaver dog. They have a very limited work life, cadaver dogs, they're only operational for a period of about three years, they have to go through a very difficult training process. It would be preferable if the cadaver dog available on the island had been used earlier.' Richard Satchwell (58), a lorry driver from the UK who had settled in Cork with his wife, claimed he killed her accidentally after fending off a claim attack by her. He then buried her remains under the house to conceal her death. Satchwell, who has 14 previous convictions, was sentenced to life in prison last week. He intends to appeal the verdict. The Garda now have two water cannons. Photograph: Alan Betson The commissioner was speaking to reporters as the force launched a report looking back at its six-year roll-out of significant operational changes. The Garda now has the largest fleet of vehicles in its history, with 3,672, including new specialist vehicles such as two water cannons, the organisation said.
Irish Examiner
09-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
Review of Tina Satchwell case to include if cadaver dog should have been used in 2017 search — Harris
The Garda Commissioner has said suggestions gardaí should have used a cadaver dog — capable of detecting human remains — at the home of Tina Satchwell when she went missing in 2017 will form part of a review he had ordered. Drew Harris pointed out that, at the time, the suspicion was that harm had been caused to Ms Satchwell, not that her body was buried in the house, located on Grattan Street, Youghal. Richard Satchwell, 58, was given a life sentence late last month for the murder of his 45-year-old wife in 2017. Her remains were found in October 2023 in a deep grave under the stairs, more than six years after her husband reported her missing. Over the weekend, justice minister Jim O'Callaghan indicated a cadaver dog should probably have been used in the initial search in 2017. Speaking on RTÉ's This Week, he said there was only one trained dog on the island of Ireland, used by the PSNI. Mr O'Callaghan said "it obviously would be preferable if we had a cadaver dog' but said it was up to the commissioner how money should be spent. Reacting to those remarks, Mr Harris said: 'We want to review all those decisions back in 2017 but what I know from the reporting that I've seen is that the suspicion was that harm had been caused to Tina Satchwell but there was no suspicion that her body was actually there.' He also said cadaver dogs were a 'very specialist subset' of police dogs. 'I have to say they are not often required operationally, it's not a usual thing that we need a cadaver dog,' he said. Mr Harris announced last Friday he had ordered a review into the initial investigation into Ms Satchwell's killing, as well as a review into the investigation into the disappearance of Kerry farmer Michael Gaine, whose remains were found in a slurry pit eight weeks after he vanished. Mr O'Callaghan requested reports into the cases.
