At 21.05 on Wednesday 16th November 2005 I received a telephone call from Devon & Cornwall Police requesting the assistance of DCRO in searching for a missing youth or youths (age and numbers unknown) who had entered a storm drain in Barnstaple, at this stage there was no reports of missing children.

The storm drain is reported to be three quarters of a mile long, terminating at the estuary, the storm drain is tidal. The tide had been at it's highest at approx. 20.30hrs and was now dropping. The Devon Fire Service were in attendance at approx. 21.30hrs but did not or would not enter the drain.

I arranged a small team to travel to Barnstaple and assist the Police (Andy Heath/Simon Mullens/Becky Green/Jason Pain/Dave Warne/Rupert Goddard) Andy Heath to act as surface control. On Andy's arrival he organised the search of the Storm drain by Simon, Becky & Jason with Dave & Rupert collecting equipment from the store en-route to Barnstaple to support the first search.

I received a call from Andy @ 23.46 stating that Simon, Becky & Jason had traversed the length of the storm drain and not found anything. Andy was therefore standing the call out down and the Police were continuing the operation and were satisfied with the job that DCRO had done.

My personal thanks to the above people for the very prompt response, in dealing with this issue, again this highlights the continued need for DCRO and the need for ongoing training - Thank you.