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Island team in search for missing April Jones
SEARCH: Star has joined in the hunt for missing April Jones. Inset are Ian Thompson, Jim MacGregor and John Coombes who assessed their skills in the Brecon Beacons
A SEARCH team from the island has joined in the hunt to find April Jones, who went missing from Machynlleth, Wales, on October 1.
Jim MacGregor and his dog Star, with Mal Stewart navigating, joined in the search – one of the largest ever carried out and involving specialist teams from across the British Isles – on Sunday.
The team from the Search and Rescue Dog Association (Isle of Man) found the town was covered in pink ribbons and residents were congregating for a church service to pray for April.
They spent four hours searching a forested area near the suspect Mark Bridger’s home village.
Jim said: ‘Conditions were very difficult on the search with dense vegetation, steep slopes and very hot conditions.’
The team were in the area following an assessment by the Search and Rescue Dog Association (England) in the Brecon Beacons. It was an upgrade to the highest level achieved by an island search dog, mountain standard, and involved searching four areas over two days and finding all people hidden in the area.
Jim said: ‘It was really good to join in the large scale search to give back something to the community that enabled Star to achieve the mountain standard.’
The charity has two search dogs on its call out list and two trainee dogs, who receive twice-weekly training. While Jim and Star were away, Andy Dunn and Gary Wright with search dog Max were called out to look for someone in Maughold.
The team is looking for volunteers to go to training to hide for the dogs. Visit www.sardaiom.im or email jimmacgregor(at)snhs.sch.im.
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Weather for Isle of Man
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 25 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Light showers
Temperature: 6 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 33 mph
Wind direction: North west
