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Paul Kenyon infiltrated the greyhound racing world by posing as an owner and trainer.

The undercover investigation found a trainer at one of London's top tracks who fixes races and a man selling drugs for dogs at tracks throughout northern England.

Kenyon also discovered a mass grave for dogs - which helps to explain what happens to some of the 10,000 dogs that retire from racing each year.

Transcript

CHRISTINE STEWART INTERVIEWED PAUL KENYON

She finds out the background to this particular investigation, and what drives him to be an investigative journalist.

INT

Ian from West London, says "I've been to dog race meetings and had a great time, everything seemed to be well controlled and regulated to me. Paul, what made you suspicious enough of greyhound racing to start investigating the sport?".

PAUL KENYON.

It's a good question. We spent several weeks phoning greyhound tracks and trainers, greyhound rescue people around the country. You have to obviously scratch a little bit deeper than just going down to the track and, viewing it and saying, "Well it all looks fairly well regulated", so we spent a lot of time talking to insiders. Once people got to know that we were doing this programme, we had people with grievances if you like, people who were very upset about the way their dogs had been treated or were suspicious about another trainer, and it took quite a long time to infiltrate and to gain people's trust to the level where we could go in and find out what the true picture was.

INT

Alicia Mitchell says "Congratulations on the programme, is the RSPCA or someone similar investigating the mass grave you found and other examples of cruelty that you uncovered?".

PAUL KENYON.

The greyhounds governing body, is called the NGRC and they investigate things like this. They had already investigated a little bit of what one particular individual in our film had been doing, After looking at him they allowed him to keep his license.... he's not been banned. I think he got fined a small amount of money, �they just didn't have enough evidence. So we decided that we would look more closely, we would go and dig up the ground, which clearly the NGRC hadn't done, we're quite happy to hand. our findings over, to the NGRC and see what they're going to do with them, so that's the situation with that particular trainer. In terms of the RSPCA and the Scottish equivalent, they do look at things like this but they really need a complaint, they need somebody to register a complaint first. If somebody phones them up and says, "I am suspicious about X Y and Z" they may look at it, but again these organisations don't have a great deal of resources, they certainly can't do a great deal of undercover work as we've done, so hopefully some programme like this and there will be action taken in its wake.

INT

The people that have contacted us seem to fall into two camps. There's been the animal rights campaigners and those people concerned about the cruelty, and there's been people interested in greyhound racing themselves, and the next question here from Alison Maudslay, she says, "As the owner of a racing greyhound I was disgusted at the deceitful way you went about your investigation".. .."I think you tricked people", she says, "into making indiscrete comments that 99% of other trainers would also have said". What do you say to that Paul?

PAUL KENYON.

Well I certainly hope that 99% of trainers wouldn't have shown us that they were giving their dogs cocaine, and wouldn't have shown us a medicine cabinet full of illegal drugs. You see, the important thing here is it's not what they said to us, it's not a flippant remark in the pub, these are actually actions which we followed up for a considerable period of time. So it's not people bragging in the pub because they're a bit drunk or something like that. We sought these individuals because we already had prima-facie evidence that they were doing something wrong. When we caught up with them we got to know them over a period of time, and they weren't just volunteering to do fixing, you actually see them pulling out the drugs, offering us cocaine, overfeeding a dog to slow it down, bragging about how many other times they've done it. So if 99% of the greyhound racing world is like that, well I mean that would be obviously absolutely disgusting. We know it's a lot more widespread than the 3 individuals that we put into our programme last night, but I'm afraid I think she's wrong. It's not trickery, we don't trick these people, we didn't ask any leading questions, we go in there and we volunteer ourselves as a greyhound owner, or somebody interested in greyhound racing.

One of the individuals, from the moment we turned up and said we wanted to buy a dog off him, within I would say 15 minutes he was telling me that he would fix a race for us, without me even bringing it up. We thought it might take a month or so to get him. On the first meeting he was volunteering that he would do that, and I find that absolutely amazing, and it would suggest to us of course that if he's prepared to do it to us he will have been prepared to do it to other people, and as I say, not something you have to get to know the individual particularly well for, he was doing it within 15 minutes. So what does that say about the state of greyhound racing?

INT

They are so up front about it.

PAUL KENYON.

Yes. One of the interesting things is away from the official tracks the first individual that we looked at last night who was trying to sell us cocaine and various other drugs to give to the dogs, he was so open about it and . When we confronted him he just said, "Well it's the norm, everybody does it". To be fair you have to be clear that that's an unofficial racing track, an independent racing track if you like. On the official tracks, the NGRC ones, it was slightly more difficult to find because these people are more used to covering their tracks, it's seen as an offence and it's governed by official rules, .

.INT

Bob Johnson from London says, "I can't see how one dog equals a mass grave", obviously you did some digging on a field where you had a tip off and you did describe it as a mass grave, but actually the scientists could only identify one whole dog. Can you explain a bit more about that?

PAUL KENYON.

We found one whole dog, what had actually happened here was that the individual concerned had been burning that area of land with lime for a considerable period of time. So we actually went in thinking we'll probably just get a few bones, in fact we got bones from a number of different dogs. We don't know how many, it could have been 5 or 6. Again you could say, "Well it doesn't make a mass grave". The important thing here is that we had two insiders who had worked for that particular trainer who have given us written testimonies that they had seen a dozen or so dogs being shot by him, and this was over a very short period of time, like a month, a dozen in a month. And we heard other people who'd.. who said that he'd been doing it over a considerable period of time, many, many years.

We never expected to go in there and dig up 100 dogs, it would have taken about a week and a JCB digger rather than spades, but what we're actually saying was that we had 5 or 6 remains, but there was 1 dog that we could test, that was all. And this dog, I think the pathologist said 3 to 5 years old, well that's a dog that's only just out of its prime, greyhounds live until they're something like 15 years old. Although we couldn't prove that it was being shot, to be absolutely clear about it, but here was a dog that had.. that had been buried at the age of between 3 and 5. We found a picture across the country that these dogs when they get to a certain age they're not wanted anymore by trainers, or their owners, because they're seen as commodities by some people. They no longer bring in the money, they no longer win races

INT

He was providing disposable ?

PAUL KENYON.

Yes, and again it's very important to say that he wasn't the only one we found, there isn't enough time in a half hour to explain how many we found and to put all our evidence forward, but there were.. there were a number of individuals that we discovered around the country who were prepared to shoot dogs, sometimes for a fiver a time.

INT

Bob also says. "You are now in breach of the rules of racing", and by that I think he's referring to the fact that you pulled a dog from the race at the last minute. The dog that you'd bought and trained for the programme. Why did you do that? You then became in the wrong yourself didn't you?

PAUL KENYON.

We did it because we knew that if we put the dog forward for that race it would have been a fraudulent activity. We'd have been guilty of conspiracy to defraud the public. On a lighter note I suppose we could have won a lot of money out of it, but we would have been in serious trouble, the police would have got involved. The BBC can't go round breaking the law just to get evidence like that. So we went right up to the point the race was about to be.. to be run, and yes we removed the dog. But it was a very small cost, if you like, to break the NGRC rules by withdrawing the animal rather than to defraud a number of people out of their money. People in betting shops would have put money on this, they would have never known what was going on, and there's no system to give it all back at the end, I mean what would we have done with the money that we'd have won ?

INT

Anne Benny says the programme was helpful to those of us involved in re-homing retired greyhounds". She would like to know more about Slippy Parkside, your own dog, has that dog returned to racing or been re-homed?

PAUL KENYON.

The dog is going to continue racing, it's with a new owner now somewhere in England. We were slightly concerned about what we did with it afterwards because there are.. there is a certain kind of fraternity within greyhound racing that if they found that dog they might not be terribly kind to it, They would see it as one of the focal points of our programme, so it's possibly going to race under a different name. But yes, it will be racing and it's with a very good owner and we do check up on it regularly. And I go and visit it to make sure it's all fine you see, and it's lovely, it's galloping through the hills in a certain part of the UK. It's a really sweet dog.

INT

James Taker asks "What was your most upsetting moment? Was it an upsetting programme for you to make?".

PAUL KENYON.

The maltreatment of dogs. About 10 000 it's thought, leave the sport each year. Something like 2000 are re-homed, I mean these figures are very, very general, but you end up with a shortfall of something like 8000 dogs. Where do they go? Occasionally they're found sort of running along motorways because they've been thrown out of the back of an owner's car or a trainer's car. So what was most upsetting is just finding out some of the ways that people do dispose of these dogs, they throw them in quarries and they quite regularly cut their ears off before they let them loose and just allow them to starve. The reason they cut their ears off is because dogs have an identifications tattoo on their ears.

It isn't just one or two individuals doing this. 6000 to 8000 dogs mysteriously going missing each. Sometimes some of the dogs being fed to other, bigger dogs as part of the sport, like sort of baiting and things like that. We also came across owners who just generally, if their dog did not win, they were annoyed with it, they took it out on the dog and they beat the dog up. The problem with that kind of thing is it's extremely difficult to prove. We heard stories about this, in terms of the abuse of dogs, and we did go undercover and went to a couple of kennels, but you'd have to stay there for years and years to be there at the point where somebody beats up a dog.

INT

There are lots of people who would like to know more about undercover work itself. Kerr Newby has asked "What drives you to find out the truth? Also, what's been your most dangerous investigation?".

PAUL KENYON.

What drives me to find out the truth? I don't know, I get a real kick out of resolving a story if you like. I like the idea that instead of doing a policy based story where there's no conclusion�.. you bring a number of politicians together and they gradually come to some kind of end thought. When you're doing this kind of programme it's fairly black and white, you follow somebody, you trace them, you do undercover filming on them, you find out they're committing a particular type of crime, and you resolve it by door stepping them at the end, So I just like the completion, the idea that.. that you start off on the hunt, it's like a voyage of discovery, and at the end you resolve it. So that sort of drives me.

I get a real kick out of resolving a story ... you start off on the hunt, it's like a voyage of discovery, and at the end you resolve it. So that sort of drives me.

Paul Kenyon

It sounds slightly inappropriate, but it is good fun. It's nice to pretend to be somebody else for a while. It's also good, you get a real sense of.. of achievement if you're with somebody for a while and suddenly they start offering to do something totally illegal and you think 'Great, all our research was correct'. You know, we spent a long time identifying this man as somebody.. somebody we ought to look at, somebody we ought to follow, and there they are suddenly, after a bit of secret filming, volunteering to do something illegal. It's a great sense of achievement.

INT

And the other part of the question, dangerous? When you come to that confrontation and they realise they've been duped and you're not the person you told them you were?

PAUL KENYON.

Yeh, I mean it's always dangerous undercover work. Its literally the first few seconds and you can sort of normally tell whether they're going to be suspicious about you, whether they're welcoming. You quite often get somebody who will sort of pat you on the back or something like that, which is slightly worrying because you've got secret filming equipment It's difficult, but you've just got to look very sort of and try and forget you have the secret filming equipment on.

INT

How difficult is it to be a chameleon? To be able to play a role, obviously you are a bit of an actor as well, but how difficult is it to stay in that role and to stay in that part on a day to day basis �. then you go home to your family and at home you're someone else again. How difficult is it to embrace that new character?

PAUL KENYON.

It is tricky. I normally have two phones with me, and one I call "the crook phone", that's the one which I give out to all the people that I'm doing undercover stuff with, so if they phone I know it's going to be somebody we're investigating. Then I have my normal personal one.

it's not like a 9 to 5 job, these individuals don't say "Well, what time are you finishing filming Paul because we're only crooked during the day!" I mean.. it rolls on and on, so you have to be prepared to be doing it 24 hours a day really.

Paul Kenyon

It's the kind of business you can't leave alone, so if you go out in the evening, if I go out with my wife or whatever, you know, suddenly the crook phone rings and you pick it up, and you suddenly have to be a completely different person. You're having a nice meal, and suddenly you have to go 'Yeh all right mate, yeh, no, I'll be there, I'll see you tomorrow morning' kind of thing, and you do have to put on a different personality, and it. You always have to be alert and you don't get very much sleep. When you're investigating this kind of thing it's not like a 9 to 5 job, these individuals don't say "Well, what time are you finishing filming Paul because we're only crooked during the day!" I mean.. it rolls on and on, so you have to be prepared to be doing it 24 hours a day really.

INT

And it's speaking differently, dressing differently, you mentioned you would carry around wads of money, and the whole idea of your mannerisms had to fit in with people that were also at the dog track.

PAUL KENYON.

No, I wouldn't normally come in contact with Greyhound people. We got to know a few people involved in the greyhound world first of all who told us how people behaved, they showed us how dogs were trained and what owners did and how they talked and that kind of thing, and it sound as though we're going to sort of extreme lengths, but it's a bit of a waste of time if you just walk in there and you're like a sort of a normal BBC reporter, you just wander in and say "Hi, what's going on here?". They wont tell you anything, they've got to get to know you over a period of time, you've got to have this kind of.. this front that you've done it before, and I mean we had good fun sort of running the dogs.

if you just walk in there like a normal BBC reporter, and say "Hi, what's going on here?". They wont tell you anything, they've got to get to know you over a period of time,

Paul Kenyon

I'll tell you the most difficult thing is to get them into those.. you know the traps a the beginning?

INT

So did you know about dogs? You're not a dog lover and necessarily even.

PAUL KENYON.

No, no, no, I'm allergic to dogs so I didn't want to go anywhere near them. Every time we had to take the dogs to a race I'd just be sitting there in the car sneezing and sneezing and we'd have like this.. a car full of dogs in the back, I'd put it in the trap and things which was always worrying because all the others had been doing it for years and they'd sort of slide their dog in the trap, and I'd be sort of wrestling with mine desperately trying to.. trying to get it into the trap. But it was all part of looking the part if you like, and I wasn't that good at it to be fair. Somehow we got away with it. I think people felt sorry for us.

INT

Paul Rider asks, "Have you been convinced you've been rumbled while undercover and feared for your safety then?".

PAUL KENYON.

Every time, every time.

INT

And then what do you do?

PAUL KENYON.

You always think you've been rumbled and you always come out and say "They know it don't they? They definitely know it - he was looking like he was suspicious, he definitely knows it" it's just this state of over sensitivity if you like, because you always think 'they must know, they must know', especially if you start asking journalistic questions. Questions which a normal individual involved in greyhound racing wouldn't be asking. A lot of these people also talk in code. Do you know what I mean? They don't say, "Here, would you like to have some cocaine to put up your dogs nose,. The normal way is.. "You know, we'll do a bit of.. you know what" we'll "sort it out between us, you don't worry mate", that kind of thing. So it's quite difficult to pin them down because they're so used to speaking in code and not being clear about it. So that you have to act a bit stupid and sort of say "Well what do you mean by that? So they open up. But I shouldn't be talking about this should I? Because it gives too many things away.

INT

'Have you now blown your cover?'. You've done a number of completely different subjects, people. People are beginning to know you, your face, the type of work you do. Does it limit your career in investigative journalism once you've done it on telly?

PAUL KENYON

. Not necessarily, no. It was interesting, at the beginning of this second series, everybody was saying, "Oh you'll.. people will recognise you, as soon as they're about to do something dodgy with you, they'll think 'Hang on, I know this guy from somewhere'". So we went to the BBC makeup department and I sat there and they brought out all these enormous, big, grisly beards and a big long wizard wig, seriously, and they put it on me and they said, "Yeh, you could. Paul you look completely different" and I said, "Well I'm not going to do a programme looking like Cat-Weasel! I mean this is going to be totally absurd. So we eventually decided there were a number of things that I could do to my appearance which changes it slightly where people wouldn't recognise me, and I'm obviously not going to say what they are, otherwise it really would be blown. We also have a number of other researchers and assistant producers and producers on the programme who will also do some of the undercover work, so we can share it between us. INT

Emma asks, "Are you scared when you go undercover?"

PAUL KENYON.

It's about winning people over - hopefully with your personality, being sort of disarmingly pleasant to them if you like. But in terms of being scared, to be fair the most scary thing really is when you confront somebody at the end. And again it's a split second.. in their mind I guess it's a split second decision about whether they hit you or whether they run away or whether they front up and argue with you, but that.. that's quite a worrying moment, If you think about it, for these individuals it's a hugely important moment in their life, I mean everything suddenly comes crumbling down, they're on national television, they're being exposed, it's very humiliating. A police officer told me that a lot of criminals that he speaks to, says they would prefer to do 2 or 3 months inside than be exposed on a programme like ours.

A police officer told me that a lot of criminals said that they would prefer to do 2 or 3 months inside than be exposed on a programme like ours.

Paul Kenyon

The whole point of our programme hopefully is that you actually see people carrying out the illegal act in front of your eyes, so we take the audience with us and they.. because they've seen it happening in front of them, they want that person to be confronted as well. They know that it's happened, because they've seen the evidence with their own eyes.

INT

Turning to ethics. Working undercover with secret cameras. You can't really do that without good justification and there are BBC rules and guidelines as well as obviously the laws of the land. So what did you have to prepare and clear before going on with this programme?

PAUL KENYON.

We don't just go in and randomly secretly film people, what's called a 'fishing expedition' - just follow people around for month on month at a race track. We're not allowed to do that. We need prima-facie evidence that an individual is committing a certain crime, and by that I mean we have witnesses.

We don't just go in an randomly secretly film people... we need prima-facie evidence that an individual is committing a certain crime, and by that I mean we have witnesses Written statements. . So the BBC doesn't let us go out secretly filming somebody unless we're.. sure that they.. what they're doing is criminal behaviour. We only go out to demonstrate it.

Paul Kenyon

Written statements to us that an individual has been doing a certain thing, we want to see the paperwork to demonstrate it and we want to see a lot of very solid evidence before we start looking at them. So the BBC doesn't let us go out secretly filming somebody unless we're.. sure that they.. what they're doing is criminal behaviour. We only go out to demonstrate it.

INT

And did you get some tips this time that maybe you couldn't pursue or wouldn't pursue for any reason?

PAUL KENYON.

Yeh, I mean this is actually quite an unusual programme in the sense that we probably could have made this 7 one hour specials. I mean we.. we could have done an awful lot more on it. This.. it's quite important to stress to people that this was just the tip of the iceberg, these are the three individuals we chose to look at, in fact we were spoiled for choice, which is very unusual in investigative documentary making. We.. it was the widespread nature of these particular offences within the greyhound racing industry that alarmed us at the beginning and made us think 'Well we ought to be doing this programme'.

The problem is with the programme like ours, it's quite difficult to show the scale. I mean we'd have had to go in and see 30 different owners over a period of years, it's just not practical. So what we're saying is 'Here are 3 that we've shown to give you an idea of the kind of the crimes that are taking place within this industry' and what we're actually saying is.. it's widespread, it was not just those 3, and we did look at other people, we did find other evidence, but they're lucky because there wasn't enough time to squeeze them into the programme.

INT

On a very personal level you for, you talked about your family and you're married. What does your wife and your family make of all these things? Is it a job they'd perhaps rather you didn't do, or they'd rather you be anonymous, you know?

PAUL KENYON.

I think my wife would prefer it if I did the holiday programme and took her along!

INT

But that must be a difficult thing when you just.. you don't wake up one morning and decide 'This is the job I'm going to do', there's been a build up to it obviously, you have a news background and so on.

PAUL KENYON.

I used to work in the Newsroom in the BBC and I.. I've got a journalistic background. Over a period of sort of 7 or 8 years I have become more investigative for all the reasons I outlined before, I like doing investigative programmes, and then you suddenly start thinking 'Well there is a side product here' and the side product is that there is a slight fear of some kind of recriminations later. But.. it's just, it goes with the job. And what does my wife think about it? My wife would probably prefer that I did political reporting or something, but you know, somebody needs to do this kind of work and that probably sounds a bit pious, but I do really believe that somebody needs to do it, and I'm prepared to for the moment, I'm sure other people will do in the future. (End of interview)