This sounds as if it is a case of people thinking that just because they know a lot about a subject they can teach it, wrong! People have to be taught to teach, granted that in a specialism like stalking a person who is very experienced and a good communicator can get the job done. However it is rare that people possess both skills.
It would be nice to have examples of just what went wrong on this course to cause the people to walk out. These things need to be known if the BDS is to act, and act I think they should. If ever there was a case of taking the money and then abandoning you to your fate this must be it. These classes must surely be monitored, the teaching levels must have some sort of quality control in place. Somebody must assume overall charge of this, how does it work internally within the BDS, who runs the training programme. I think a complaint should be lodged, names should be named and instances of bad practice highlighted. If it was the BDS getting short changed somewhere along the line I'm sure they would have something to say.
Cervus, any chance you could get your novice to supply more details, write a letter of complaint to the BDS? Is he a member of this site? if so and he does not wish to complain, if he was willing to supply me with the details then I would write to the BDS on behalf of our site and it's members. After all there are a lot of them that are being coerced into taking the DSC1 by their respective Constabularies and it would be nice to know that the bodies supplying this service are doing just that, supplying a service for which they are being well paid.
John