Police contact with a man before his death - Merseyside Police, August 2017

A man attended a voluntary interview with Merseyside Police on 18 August 2017 to respond to allegations made against him. He denied the offences and left after all appropriate risk assessments had been conducted. The man said he had diabetes, which he was controlling with medication.

On 29 August 2017 the man’s ex-partner contacted Merseyside Police to report that she was worried for him, as she had been told he had not been seen for a while. The fact he had diabetes was mentioned, but no other vulnerabilities were stated. The call handler advised the man’s ex-partner to check with hospitals and to ring back if still concerned, but that the police should be the last port of call. No incident log was created for this call.

On 31 August 2017, Merseyside Police was contacted on behalf of the man’s ex-partner to request assistance in collecting belongings from the man’s home. During the call it was mentioned that the man had still not been seen for over a week. An appointment was set for 2 September 2017.

Police forced entry to the man’s home on 2 September 2017 and found him dead. Three empty blister packets of medication were found in the bin, along with a quantity of unused diabetes medication dating back to 2014.

Our investigators met with the man’s family and they raised concerns that, prior to his voluntary interview, he was being intimidated by officers to force him to attend the interview and were doing so without authority. This was included in our investigation and registered as a complaint.

We contacted the investigating officer to obtain a statement, which we cross referenced against the custody log opened for the voluntary interview. No concerns were noted in the custody log and no indications made by the man that he was at risk.

We undertook an audit of incidents at the man’s home address and checked the tracking information of patrol cars to see if officers had attended the man’s home at any time without authority. This audit highlighted that patrols had been to the man’s home once prior to his interview, but that this was part of a live incident.

Our investigation found no evidence to indicate that any individual had behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings. There was no evidence that the police may have caused or contributed to the man’s death.

We also found no evidence to indicate that the man was intimidated to force him to attend the interview, and he did not raise any concerns when he arrived at the police station. We did not uphold the complaint.

We were of the opinion that there was sufficient information to warrant the call handler opening an incident log when the man’s ex-partner called on 31 August, and that this may be addressed through management action.

After reviewing our report, the force agreed to address the performance of the call handler by discussing learning from this incident.