Response to missing person’s report - West Midlands Police, December 2017

At 12.38pm on 30 December 2017, a man made the first of two telephone calls to West Midlands Police (WMP). He reported he had not seen his (adult) son, since Christmas Eve. The man disclosed details of his son’s medical history, following which WMP decided that the son was a ‘missing person’ and determined that a ‘safe and well’ enquiry should be conducted at the son’s home address. The incident was graded as priority 2, requiring a response “as soon as possible and within 60 minutes of receiving the call”. The man called again at 7.34pm to say he was concerned that his son may have had a seizure and was alone in his flat.

Officers went to the son’s home the following morning. They forced entry and found him dead in his flat.

We examined the incident and concluded that the correct grading had been assigned to it. We also obtained resourcing information for 30 and 31 December 2017 and concluded that the force was experiencing a busy period; it would not have been possible for officers to go to the son’s flat sooner than they did, as police were responding to more urgent priority incidents.

We obtained information from the pathologist, which suggested the man’s son may have died before the initial phone call to police. Therefore, response time was not a factor in his death.

In our opinion there was no evidence that WMP caused or contributed to the death of the man’s son.

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, or had committed a criminal offence.

As part of our investigation we identified areas for improvement for WMP around introducing measures to ensure that cases awaiting resourcing are referred to a supervisor at regular intervals, to review risk, actions and possible resourcing.

After reviewing our report, the force agreed that they would address the identified learning around ensuring that overdue and unresourced priority 2 logs involving missing persons are regularly reviewed by a contact centre supervisor until resourced, to ensure that risk is managed appropriately.