A RETIRED police dog and his best friend visited students to share their incredible story of campaigning to get a law passed to help protect service animals in the line of duty.

PC Dave Wardell and his life-long companion Finn visited Heathfield School in Ascot on Thursday, May 23.

Schoolgirls learned how the pair battled to get Finn's Law passed in parliament after Finn the German Shepherd, was stabbed with a 10 inch blade when taking down a police suspect in October 2016.

After this, PC Wardell campaigned to push through legislation which makes it an offence to harm or abuse an animal while on duty and anyone who does will be sentenced to six months in prison.

The Act named 'Finn's Law' successfully received Royal Assent on April 8 2019.

PC Wardell, campaigner for Finn's Law, said: "Our whole campaign has been positive and if that has borne out in our results then that helps to get our message across to our youngsters."

Finn and Dave are currently through to the live shows on Britain's Got Talent and have been sharing their incredible story to the whole nation.

Sophia Adderley, headgirl at Heathfield, said: "Its really inspiring to hear their story especially as we would not normally hear about those incidents and the fact they are trying to make a name for Finn's Law and trying to help other animals is really important for us to hear so we are aware of what is going on."

The story of Finn and PC Wardell coincided with Mental Health Awareness week and aimed to inspire students at the school to be resilient.

The visit included a short presentation and Q&A, a scent tracking demonstration and how police dogs take down a suspect.

Marina Gardiner Legge, headteacher at Heathfield School, said: "There were three things which were absolutely inspirational from his talk.

"His resilience and the ability to talk about something awful that has happened and to get up off your feet. The second thing was when he was open about the challenges he has faced with mental health and the more we talk about mental health - I think is really important.

"When he talked about how his voice had not been listened to - that is the opposite of what any person in education wants to hear, we want to give young people's a voice to express themselves."