Woman found dead after being reported missing - Cambridgeshire Constabulary, April 2018

In April 2018 a man called Cambridgeshire Constabulary to report that his wife was missing. He hadn’t seen her for two hours after they had had an argument. He also mentioned that she had a number of vulnerabilities, including a history of depression, and had attempted to take her own life some years ago.

The call handler and supervisor dealing with this call treated this as a domestic incident, and not as a missing person. This affected the information they gathered from the husband and the way the incident was dealt with.

Later that evening the incident was reviewed and reclassified as a missing person. Officers went to the man’s home and spoke to him about the circumstances surrounding his wife leaving. Officers searched the house, as well as the local area and parks. They also took a number of actions, including calling local hotels. After being told that a guest of that name was staying there, officers went to a hotel, where they found the woman in one of the rooms. She had taken her own life.

During our investigation, investigators interviewed the call handler and supervisor under misconduct notice. They also obtained written responses from the attending officers and their sergeant, and reviewed other evidence, including body-worn video, call recordings, the incident report, and relevant policies.

We found some discrepancies in how the call handler and their supervisor recalled the events and their conversation about how the call should be considered.

Based on the evidence available, we were of the opinion that the call handler and supervisor should have treated the call from the woman’s husband as a high-risk missing person report from the outset. Treating the call as a domestic incident appears to have impacted on the subsequent police response, with some initial focus on investigating a domestic violence matter, rather than progressing a missing person enquiry. We recommended that this should be addressed as performance issues with both members of staff. We concluded our investigation in October 2018.

After reviewing our report, Cambridgeshire Constabulary agreed that both members of staff would receive management action, linked to learning objectives. The force also advised that force control room staff would receive a refresher on procedures and policies for both domestic incidents and missing persons.