Give cops help to find the missing

THE trauma for family and friends when a loved one goes missing must be unbearable.

That’s why we expect police to leave no stone unturned when it comes to searching for missing people.

But the family of dad-of-two Daniel Fraser, from Musselburgh, were instead made to wait five weeks in anguish as police searched for the 35-year-old.

And it wasn’t the police who discovered a body but volunteer divers using state-of-the-art underwater technology.

Armed with this equipment, they found remains that are feared to be Daniel’s in 52 minutes.

Yet for reasons many are struggling to understand, police officers in Scotland don’t currently have access to this kit.

It’s shocking, ridiculous and just plain wrong that volunteers using this £6000 piece of equipment could find a body in less than an hour, while cops failed to find Daniel over the course of a fiveweek search.

And it’s truly baffling if this is a matter of expense. What must the cost be for a police operation that lasts over a month, using a helicopter, search teams and police dogs, and yet winds up fruitless?

Even more damning, it’s the second such case in a matter of weeks – after divers used a sonar scanner to recover the body of Greig Stoddart, who tragically went missing on a fishing trip near Alloa on Christmas Eve.

As with the latest case, that came after a lengthy, failed search by Police Scotland which left Greig’s family to endure weeks of torment before there was resolution.

That this happened once is awful enough. For it to happen a second time is scandalous. Police Scotland must get access to this technology if it will help cut the time families spend in this unimaginable limbo. No more excuses.