the uk and ireland. this is the story of molly, one of those stolen dogs, and the fight to bring her back home. are you good? i would actually rather know that she was dead than to imagine the sort of people that she's with right now. a miniature, bitch, two—year—old, lads. it's the smell that gets - you first and then hundreds of these eyes - looking back at you. i have seen people taking photographs of dogs. i guarantee that i can look on dog for sale pages and see those pictures. only a very, very small percentage of people are actually prosecuted for this. good girl! she still has love to give and still has faith i in the human race. good girl, good girl! we haven't stopped fighting for even a single day, and we never will. are you good? one of my favourite things that i remember about molly is that she just had so much love inside herfor all of us. she's just so lovable and kind. the last photo that i took of molly, molly just stood there behind the flowers. in those photos, she really looks like she's smiling. those were the last photos that i took of her. the evening that molly was stolen, we had our back door open. the two dogs were outside, molly and millie. millie came back and there was no sign of molly. ten minutes passed, then 20 minutes, and i was still calling her, like, i was shouting at the top of my lungs at this point. there was just no sign, so we started to walk the roads and we also took the cars out, drove around locally, up to the village. it was midnight then that mam rang the guards and she reported molly as missing, we suspected her as stolen. she possibly wasjust picked up... ..thrown in the boot, closed it down. she's in darkness from that point. then when it opens up again, she has no idea where she is or who she's with. she's being handed over on a rope. her collar is... we don't know where. it's been removed at that point. you feel sick and you panic. i said to my mam, i would actually rather know that she was dead than to imagine the sort of people that she's with right now. you'd rather go out onto your road and see that someone had knocked your dog down, you'd rather know that they had lived their life and that they'd the most amazing time with their family who love them and adore them and that...then they are gone. you know, you'd rather know that. something we've talked about quite a bit on this programme in recent weeks is the rise in dog thefts during the pandemic. gangs are involved now, the prices of these animals have risen £5,000, £10,000 a time for a dog. the gangs are very violent, i had constituents being knocked to the ground, beaten, stamped on their hands, threats to them, threats to their home, threats to their families. within less than 12 hours, we had pretty much an entire campaign going. by the following morning, we had created the first poster and we were going door—to—door as well in different places. that next day after molly was stolen, we created the actual bring molly home facebook page to post every day and just try and make her too hot to handle — that's what everyone says to do — make her too hot to handle. someone will dump her because they won't be able to sell her if everyone knows that she's a stolen dog. we miss you, molly. we miss you so very much. you are nothing short of the best, best girl and we love you. we hope you're ok for now. please don't forget us and never think we've given up on you. we hope to god... a week after molly was stolen, i received a message on the facebook page from a person who remains anonymous, who said, "can you ring me? i know who stole your dog." we called the guards straight away with that — our garda siochana, which is the irish police. when we were given information about a certain location that she had passed through, the next morning, the guards were at that property. the cctv, which has been watched by the guards, she is seen being passed on from one person to the next. within 12 hours of being stolen, she had been sold twice already. i've been working for about 25 years for law enforcement. we're taking this facial data, this tracking, _ this metaview in 3d,| and transmitting that over to our entirely new virtual avatar. | both myself and other people connected to the investigation have received death threats, so it's important that we retain our anonymity for the protection of both our families and ourselves. demand for puppies went through the roof. the type of guys we're investigating began to look at any method they could for obtaining puppies. one of the easiest ways to obtain puppies quickly is to obtain a breading age bitch, and the quickest way of doing that illicitly is to steal it. naturally, a dog will have one, possibly two litters a year. however, because of the demand, they need more litters a year. so they pump the animals full of hormones, it is just literally litter after litter after litter. it does terrible things to the animals in that process. all i saw in front of me - was this pitiful, broken dog. she smelt disgusting, she was coveredj in faeces, urine, she has a skin tumour on her side, - which was severely infected. i would say that _ she has definitely been used for breeding, which is what- happens with so many of these poor bitches that are used . for moneymaking machines. as she's obviously got stronger, - her personality - is coming out now. she still has love to give and still has faith i in the human race, which is even more heartbreaking — - that we can use, abuse and then dump - and they still forgive us - and they still want to love us. nobody is enforcing the laws that we have, and the laws that we have are so weak anyway. the police need to much notice, the authorities need too much notice. nobody wants to know. theyjust keep passing the buck, and somebody's got to stand up, take responsibility and do something about it. you look at a map and work out the best way to get into that site safely, climbing through hedges, swimming across water, whatever you have to do to locate those animals. usually your heart is in your mouth because you've got to be so alert about what's going on, because at any minute, you could be in a lot of danger. it's the smell that gets you first, and then hundreds of these eyes looking back at you. some of the animals, they're in a terrible state, matted coats. you can hardly see what breeds they are sometimes. when cages are on top of each other, then the faeces and the urine will drip down from one cage into another cage. some of them are sort of scrabbling at the cage and standing up with their paws on the cage. some are whining, barking, and then there's others that are just so traumatised, that they're at the back of the cage. they're terrified and they won't come near you. so, usually, it'll happen in the middle of the night and it's always terrifying because are they going to bring the dog or are they going to hit you over the head and take the money? the owners are so petrified that you'll get the police involved, because the first thing they say is, "if you bring the police down here, "then we're going to kill your dog." you just wait and pray that it all goes to plan and nobody gets hurt and that you get the dog back. i always say, take a slip lead you, throw the slip lead over the dog as quick as you can, give them the money and just get out of there. i know people that have remortgaged their houses and they've taken out loans. i can't tell you how it feels when it works. you see the owner in floods of tears. i'm usually in floods of tears. it's amazing. but we shouldn't have to be doing that. we received a further anonymous call. that information suggested that molly had been moved to the uk. i was just furious. all the work that we had put in wasn't enough, because it happens so fast. he runs r&r transport services, and richie is responsible for transporting a number of animals across the irish sea illicitly. i've lived here for many years. i dread having to go that way. i've seen that lorry there on numerous occasions. for quite some time, he has been visiting that place. this one particular time, i happened to be driving past. there was a man and a lady, and they had a cage, and in this cage there was a pug and another dog, a terrier type, i think it was. and they took the cage to the jockey door and they were feeding the dogs into the lorry. a dog, who i believe was molly, was on the back of a cart. the more i look at the picture of molly and the more i remember this dog, then and i would say, yes, it was molly on the back of that cart. i've seen dogs come out of there with awful wounds. i've seen a dog and she had cigarette burn scars all down her neck and down her back. she was in a really bad way. i have seen a dog come out of there where it's lost the top of its tail and there was blood coming out of it. i've seen many, many dogs coming out of there. bitches where their teats are dragging on the floor, where they have been bred and bred and bred. it really breaks your heart. nobody wants to see that, nobody wants to witness it. however, it is thrust in your face because nobody is doing anything about it. i have seen people taking photographs of dogs. i guarantee that i can look on dog—for—sale pages and see those pictures. the guards contacted the uk police in the area with what info they had. it wasn't enough to search any property at that time. nothing came from that, and we were lost from that point. the reality is you can watch these crimes happening from your own bedroom. man: springer miniature. bitch, two—year—old labs. i have seen videos of multiple men auctioning a dog and she is sitting in the middle of them. she's a miniature springer. what do you reckon of her, boys? just got her there now. and they're shining torches on her, flashing them over her eyes and making their pitch for her sale. and it's really just horrendous. there's numerous facebook groups which are solely used for buying and selling dogs. any registered or licensed breeder would not be selling on facebook. these groups are ongoing continuously, and there's nobody monitoring them. the magnitude isjust massive. every time i log in online, there's more posts. we often see as well, comments from people who say, "i check molly's page every single day, "just to see if she's home. "i've never cried so much over a dog that i've never met. "i hope you get her home soon." molly's story has just grown so big that i don't know what's going to happen when we finally get to tell people that she's back. i think it's going to be insane. people want to come and meet her, we will have to do a kind of drive—by meet and greet molly at the gate, i think. it was actually one of the girls who was on our molly team, was looking on websites to see if she could find different stolen dogs. that's how it often happens, they're spotted in ads for sale. since december 2019, i would estimate i have looked at between 10,000 to 20,000 adverts. the adverts have been designed, have been engineered to tug at your heartstrings and from the very first sentence, it evokes the image of a wholesome pet, animals that are well looked after, but when you scratch the surface, there is an illegal and illicit trade. the amounts of money involved in this are eye—watering. the rewards you can get from a litter of puppies run on average between £20,000 to £30,000 a litter. if you are prosecuted for breeding illicitly, then you are likely to get a very low—level fine. so we're looking at between £500 to £750. and of course only a very, very small percentage of people are actually prosecuted for this. very few people are caught for stealing dogs, and then very few people are charged. and when they are charged, they get very minimal sentences. my chocolate labrador, if he were stolen, he'd be treated in much the same way as a laptop. an object that has been taken. the fact that they are sentient, the fact that they are companions, the fact that they are family members has not been taken into consideration whatsoever. they need to be taken more seriously by the police, need to be taken more seriously by by the courts, and it needs to be taken more seriously by the politicians that have the opportunity to change the laws. it is literally pandora's box and we have only scratched the surface. i think the pandemic maybe exacerbated it, but prior to that, they'd already secured their marketplace. the people we are dealing with are highly organised and hyper—mobile. there needs to be far more investigators looking at this, there needs to be more interaction between the agencies. are highly organised and hyper—mobile. and until we do that, this problem is not going to go away. so, yeah, i don't know how i feel about it. we still are without molly, so to be honest, all we really care about is getting her home. i wouldn't say that that'sjustice, you know. this is the victim impact statement that i had written to be read in court. "molly's theft has affected each of us in different ways, "from anxiety and paranoia to sleep deprivation, "recurring nightmares, and most of all, grief." "we have had our hopes raised up and then shattered "on more than one occasion " by people who have falsely claimed to have molly. "we have had countless sleepless nights "due to regular intrusive thoughts "about their conditions molly might be kept in now. "when we finally do get to sleep, the nightmares ensue. "these are mainly dreams "in which we eventually find molly..." cries "..only to be jolted awake with the dreadful reminder "that this is really not the case. "she's still missing." millie! molly! say hi! are you having a great time? good girl. hey, millie, are you having a nice time? i actually had a dream last night. i remember in the dream being with molly, and i think i brought her to meet my mother, mam hadn't seen her yet, that she was back. she was saying, "it's not real," and i said, "no, it's definitely real, "it's way more real than the dreams "where i feel like she's home." and then i woke up, and i was like... ..here we go again. hey, molly! you getting all the pets? all the petty—pets? oh, molly. hello there. it's been an unsettled start to 2022, hasn't it? but wednesday changed all that for many across england and wales. a little more cloud driven into scotland and northern ireland and here we could continue to see a little drizzle. it will be a relatively mild start to the day to the north once again, cold and frosty and some fog may lingerfor quite again, cold and frosty and some fog may linger for quite some time. it will readily lift into low cloud and potentially linger into the afternoon but for some of us if the fog eases away the sunshine comes through and could another pleasant day, dry settled and sunny. temperatures at around 6—8 and further north patchy drizzle from time to time and highs of ten or 11 celsius. the next few days it will continue to stay mild and breezy with a little bit of drizzle into the far north—west further south it will be colder and fog and frost could be an issue. welcome to bbc news. i'm simon pusey. our top stories: members of borisjohnson�*s own party call for him to resign as prime minister after admitting he attended a downing street drinks gathering at the height of the uk's covid lockdown i regret the way the event i have described was handled. i bitterly regret it and wish that we could have done things differently, and i have and will continue to apologise for what we did. prince andrew fails to get a civil case dismissed in the us, which accuses him of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. russia and nato hold their first face—to—face talks in two years as tensions remain high over the build—up of russian troops on the border with ukraine. should he stay or should he go? tennis star novak djokovic waits to find out if he will be deported ahead of the australian open.