Officers from the South West borough command unit's OCSAE (Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation) team had a visit from police dog Dexter, the Met's first welfare dog this week.

The team view evidential images related to child exploitation, including indecent images of children. They investigate crimes across the boroughs of Richmond, Kingston Wandsworth and Merton.

This can have quite an impact due to the nature of what they see, and it is some of the worst material that any officer can view in this job.

The team work really hard and view thousands of images every week.

A very welcome visitor to teams across the capital, Dexter has been providing some well-deserved rest and affection for those carrying out difficult jobs.

The officers receive support from occupational health, and get support from their colleagues, but this furry recruit gave them a visit to provide a little boost of morale and sunshine.

Dexter was with the team for a couple of hours, and dog handler Mike gave a great talk about the importance of mental health.

Detective Sergeant Suzanne Quinton said: "It definitely gave the team a boost and a sense of well-being, of benefit to our role but also a general boost during the covid lockdown."

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Dexter is a pedigree black Labrador, bred by the Met Police at Keston. He was earmarked for training as a passive scan drugs dog.

However, he was withdrawn from his training in week four for being too sociable. He wanted to interact too much with people and was not enjoying the detection work.