Response to concern for welfare report - West Midlands Police, November 2017

On 13 November 2017, concern for the whereabouts of a man were raised to West Midlands Police by a council employee. Police went to a house in Solihull and conducted a search for the man after forcing the front door. They were unable to find the man. Council workers went to the house the next day to ensure the house was secure and to take photographs of the inside of the house to record its contents. The man was not found by council workers. Officers then searched an air raid shelter in the garden of the house on 17 November 2017, but were still unable to find the man. On 4 December 2017, a relative of the man reported him as missing.

On 24 December 2017, police officers went to the man’s house to search again for an indication of where the man could be. Officers forced entry into the house and subsequently found the man’s body in a cupboard under the stairs. It appeared the man had been dead for some time. The post-mortem report indicated that the man had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Our investigators took statements from the officers who conducted the search, and from the council workers who raised concerns for the man’s whereabouts and also went to the man’s home. We analysed and compared officers’ body-worn camera footage, scene photographs and the post-mortem report, along with force policy, as well as the accounts of police officers after the man had been found.

The evidence indicated that the man was likely to have died before concerns for his welfare were reported to the police, and provided no suggestion that the police caused or contributed to the man’s death.

Based on the evidence available, we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings.