Footnote

Since I finished my report for The Ecologist (October 2004) I have heard that a third police officer in the Leicester force has contracted oesophageal cancer - the cancer which killed PC Neil Dring.

At the end of my article I referred to a Crime Scene Investigator dying of throat cancer. This information came from a Police Inspector on the TETRA Project in Sussex, in a response to a question from a member of the public there. (See the Inspector's e-mail, below.) I thought, given the source, that the information was accurate but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case: the CSI was diagnosed with cancer after he began using the Tetra radio, but has now made a good recovery, and unsurprisingly doesn't relish reading reports of his death.

I'm now told that the death referred to was not the CSI, (as was clearly, and wrongly, indicated) but another member of the police service - believed to be a uniformed officer.

This is an extract from the Inspector's email:

Can I confirm whether any officers or the Scenes of Crime officers referred to have or did refuse to use TETRA handsets? I have been in contact with Lancashire and confirmed that everybody there, both Police and support staff, do use TETRA. The issue around the scenes of crime officers related to a single incident when one member of staff received an electric shock when handling his radio with metallic powder (actually very fine iron filings) on his gloves. This has never been replicated, and I am told that nobody there ever actually refused to use a radio handset. I have confirmed that the member of the team who had contracted throat cancer was indeed diagnosed with the condition before the inception of Airwave. Regrettably he has since died.