Coppers

The relationship between police dogs and their handlers in Nottinghamshire, revealing the wide range of skills taught to the animals during their training. As well as handling dogs, the officers are trained high-speed drivers, and are often the first to arrive at the scene of a crime, with little idea of what lies ahead.

With exclusive access to Nottinghamshire police's Armed Response Unit, this episode reveals what it's like carrying a lethal weapon on the British streets, 'The Gucci end of the job'. Whether armed with 9mm pistols, semi-automatic carbines or tasers, the Armed Response Unit officers are highly trained and always ready for action, but praying they never have to pull the trigger and possibly take someone's life. The programme follows the officers as they stop a car they believe contains a weapon, detain a man accused of threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend and arrest a woman for confronting a former friend with a pistol. PC Dan Butler is philosophical about having to take a fatal shot: 'If they put themselves in a position where I have no choice but to take a shot at them, I will take that shot at them; but it's their choice and their life choices and actions which has led me to take that shot.' While Nottinghamshire police attend an average of 243 firearms incidents annually, there are on average 1500 occasions a year when tasers are deployed. Their use by British police is controversial, but many of the armed officers believe that all frontline police should have access to tasers. 'It's the best thing we've got,' says one. One officer describes being tasered: 'I've never experienced pain like it,' while another says: 'It's like holding an electric fence, but times that by 10,000.'

This episode meets beat bobbies tackling shoplifters, burglars, drunks, anti-social behaviour and intractable disputes between neighbours in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. The police find themselves dealing with the same people time and again. Like most officers, straight-talking Inspector Steve Cartwright is fed up with career criminals with no respect for the police or society and is sick of dealing with neighbourly disputes. 'Since when has dog poo outside your house been a police matter? We all joined to be cops, not social workers.' But upbeat PC Steve Porter, who came to policing after a career as a factory manager, feels he has found his calling dealing with people's problems: 'We spend our time sorting people's lives out and if I can make a difference, it's a job well done to me.' No-nonsense PC Christian Hurley has been on the beat team for three years and admits it was a culture shock when he first joined: 'Seeing needles and spoons with heroin in people's houses used to be shocking, but you get used to it... it's a case of wipe your feet on the way out.' Meanwhile, 26-year-old PC Dan Cooper, the youngest officer on Worksop's Neighbourhood Team, has had to adapt quickly to the reality of modern policing: 'Society's gone a bit by the wayside ain't it? We all get called offensive names, being spat at is the worst... you just have to detach yourself from it.'

Detectives from Mansfield CID and are struggling with a burglary epidemic, with over 6000 homes in Nottingham targeted in 2011. Meanwhile officers launch a manhunt that ends with the discovery of a dead body in a wood, and arrest a convicted pedophile after the attempted rape of a young boy.