The police officers, who volunteer for the specialist role on top of their other duties, conducted a series of routine search exercises at the Trent embankment last week.

The team, one of only 11 in the country, is on standby to conduct underwater searches across the East Midlands and beyond.

Each of its ten qualified divers must complete regular training dives to retain their qualification and be ready to respond to call outs.

Tuesday’s exercise was observed by a number of interested spectators, including children from a local nursery school who posed for pictures with diver PC Steve Craner after watching him emerge from the water.

PC James Patterson, Dive Supervisor at the Underwater Search Unit, said: “A lot of people associate our work only with missing person searches, but there are also a lot of crimes where people discard key bits of evidence in the water.

“We use a number of techniques to find those items and have helped to solve several murders around the country where items such as mobile phones have been recovered from the water.”

“It’s a really great team to be a part of and can come with a great sense of achievement – whether that’s finding a key bit of evidence, or returning a missing person back to their loved ones.”