Police found cocaine and ketamine in numerous pubs on Saturday night after deploying a specialist drugs dog to help enforce licensing rules.

Officers from the Ribble Valley along with East Lancashire's police licensing unit sergeant, Sgt Gary Hennigan, took to the streets with a trained drugs dog to sniff out any illegal substances from the borough's pubs and bars.

The outing was the first in a new operation entitled Operation Tufnell, which is aiming to tackle drugs use and abuse in the night time economy, and also crack down on substances that could be used for spiking offences.

The police have secured funding for the hire of a private drugs dog on multiple occasions, with the money coming from the Ribble Valley Borough Council (RVBC) Community Safety Partnership.

And on Saturday night, neighbourhood police were joined by officers from the Ribble Valley rural task force, the Pendle task force, special constabulary officers, RVBC licensing officers and dog handler, Tamsin from Inquest Canine.

The dog, a golden Labrador is trained to recognise any illegal drug, which would include those that could be used in spiking offences.

Lancashire Telegraph: Ribble Valley police were on patrol in the pubs and bars with a dedicated drugs dog

Sgt Kev Day from Ribble Valley police said on Sunday: "The method was simple - Gary and I would go into each pub first and give the licensee a warning of what was about to happen.

Around a minute later Tamsin and her lovely golden Labrador would follow us with a couple of bobbies and we let them go to work.

"If our sniffer liked the smell of someone they were "invited" to take part in a search."

Over the course of the evening the dog was able to sniff out a quantity of drugs from people enjoying their evenings, with their fun coming to an abrupt ending.

Cocaine and ketamine was recovered from several individuals, with those found in possession of class A substances arrested.

They will be required to attend court in due course.

Sgt Day continued: "This was a no-tolerance operation and no wrist slaps were being handed out.

"We were genuinely thrilled to see that all of the licensees were fully on-board and that 99 per cent of the public were happy to get involved and were grateful to see that we had been listening to them and were tackling the drug dealers and users head-on.

"There's always the one per cent who aren't quite so keen.

"I'd like to say a huge thanks to everyone who got involved last night.

"We were asking people to walk out of venues to pass the dog in some cases and then walk round and back in.

"This isn't a normal expectation on your evening out, but it helped us take drugs off the street and hopefully demonstrate to our communities that we are working hard to keep you safe.

"More Operation Tufnell to come.

"Deal and use drugs around our valley at your peril."