Response to calls for assistance - Metropolitan Police Service, June 2018
In the week preceding 31 May 2018, a woman contacted the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) because she wanted police assistance to obtain an order to prevent her ex-husband from attending her home. She stated that she did not receive the assistance she wanted and was advised to speak to a solicitor.
On 31 May 2018, at 11.54pm, the woman made a 999 call to the MPS. The call operator noted on the system that the woman reported someone banging on her door and buzzing her buzzer. The woman informed the call operator that she believed the person may have been her ex-husband. The call was graded as ‘significant’ by the call operator, for which the MPS target response time is 60 minutes.
Police officers were initially allocated to attend the woman’s home, but were then diverted to attend an ‘immediate’ graded call, and did not go to the woman’s home.
On 1 June 2018 at 2.30am, the woman made a 999 call to the MPS from hospital. She informed the call operator that, at around midnight earlier that evening, her ex-husband had kicked open her door, entered her home and assaulted her. The woman’s ex-husband was convicted of an offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The woman later said that she passed the telephone to someone else to speak to the call operator, and that the call operator had put the phone down after telling that person that they would need to speak directly to the woman reporting the assault.
We investigated the MPS’s response to the woman’s requests for police assistance and her complaints regarding police response to her calls.
During the investigation, our investigators interviewed the staff in the Force Control Room who dealt with the calls made by the woman and the two police officers who were allocated to attend the woman’s first call to the police for assistance.
Our investigators also reviewed the police incident reports and listened to the calls made by the woman to the police. They examined MPS policies regarding call handling and special schemes that alert police staff to risk connected with an individual to see whether they were properly followed.
Evidence showed that, when the woman called on 31 May 2018, she said she didn’t know who was banging on her door, but she believed it could be her ex-husband. Due to the uncertainty, the call handler therefore did not treat this as a domestic incident. The woman was under the impression that her phone number was flagged to result in a high-priority response from the police if she called them. The investigation identified that this was not the case and the marker had been removed from her property in January 2018. Our investigation did not identify any deviation from MPS guidance in relation to the removal of the marker from the woman’s home.
Evidence also indicated that Force Control Room staff were unaware that officers had diverted to another incident, which meant that no new unit was reallocated to deal with the woman’s call for assistance. Evidence suggested that there had been a breakdown in communications when officers were diverted to another, higher-priority, incident, and that systems and policies were not resilient enough to manage that particular situation.
The evidence also showed that, when the woman called from the hospital, the call handler said they would pass on the details to the officers dealing with her previous call, and that officers did attend the hospital to speak to her.
We identified some learning for the force in a number of areas and made three recommendations to the MPS (see below).
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. We did not uphold the woman’s complaints. We completed our investigation in June 2019.
After reviewing our report, the MPS agreed. They advised that the two officers allocated to respond to the woman’s call would take learning from this incident as regards ensuring that any radio transmissions are acknowledged and understood.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
To safeguard the victim during domestic abuse investigations, their address can be location marked and included in a special scheme that identifies that they are at risk. It is recommended that the MPS should take the necessary steps to ensure that a victim is made aware, from the outset, how long this marker is likely to be in place for and also that it may be withdrawn following an assessment of risk by the MPS. It is also recommended that, at the time of review, the officer conducting the risk assessment should attempt to contact the victim to inform them of the force's intention to remove the marker so they are aware of this intended action. If contact with the victim is not possible, then all attempts (and the outcome) should be recorded by the officer concerned.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
The Special Scheme Policy has been amended by the policy owner and notification of this was published on the MPS intranet on 12th July 2019, alerting police officers and staff to these changes. The amended policy now reads;
“Once a scheme has been implemented the OIC MUST make contact with the victim concerned and explain what a Special Scheme is and how long the scheme is intended to be in place. The OIC must also explain that the scheme will be withdrawn after a maximum period of six months if the risk no longer exists. The OIC should initially use the victim’s preferred method of contact. If this is not successful the OIC must consider which other safe methods of contact could be used to ensure the victim is informed. All contact and all attempted contact with the victim must be recorded on the appropriate crime report and the OIC must record whether or not information regarding Special Schemes has been passed to the victim.”
In addition, Form 4564 (Special Scheme Request Form) is currently being amended to include a warning that the Real Time Response Desk (unit responsible for reviewing the form, checking compliance and inputting the Special Scheme on the CAD system) have no contact with the victim and it is therefore the responsibility of the OIC to make contact. A link to the Special Scheme Policy will also be added.
Changes to the pro forma e-mail which is sent to the OIC are also in the process of being implemented. This will instruct the OIC to explain Special Schemes to the victim and record this contact on the CRIS (Crime Recording System). It is then the responsibility of the OIC to continuously review and consider whether the scheme is still required as part of the investigation.
The first stage review email will be amended to instruct the OIC to contact the victim, whether the scheme is extended or withdrawn and record this on CRIS. The Real Time Response Desk will not contact the victim on their behalf. If the OIC does not respond within 14 days, then a second stage review will be implemented where an e-mail will be sent to the BCU Crime Manager to ensure the review is conducted.
It is the responsibility of the OIC to make appropriate contact with the victim. The OIC MUST inform the victim that the scheme is either being withdrawn or extended and explain what this means to them. All contact and all attempted contact with the victim must be recorded on the appropriate crime report and the OIC must record whether or not information regarding the withdrawal of the scheme has been passed to the victim.
It is recommended guidance is provided regarding the steps to be taken by control room staff and officers, to ensure that, if a unit deployed to an incident is diverted, the original incident is still attended.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
MetCC have written a Standard Operating Procedure which details the actions to be taken by control room staff and officers, to ensure that if a unit deployed to an incident is diverted, the original incident is still attended. This guidance has received authorisation for publication and will be disseminated within the next week to all staff and responses recorded when the guidance has been read.
The process to be followed is:
- When a Despatch Operator re-assigns a unit to an alternative CAD, the original CAD must be tagged with a divert tag.
- The Controller is to be made aware of the re-assignment by the Despatch Operator in order to review that the re-assignment is appropriate based on the level of apparent comparative risk with the original incident.
- If the Controller assesses that re-assignment is inappropriate, an intervention will take place overriding the re-assignment. The response unit will be informed that they have been re-assigned to the original incident. If there is any challenge to this decision from BCU managers or the Operations Room then this decision must be referred to the MetCC Despatch Duty Officer.
- If the decision is assessed as appropriate by the Controller, the re-assignment must be highlighted on CAD for the attention of the Ops Room based Inspector. They will review available response units and task Despatch staff to identify an available unit and assign one to the original incident. Results of this action will be recorded on the CAD and overseen by Despatch Controller.
- Should an operational divert take place, the appropriate recording of that action will be made facilitating an effective auditing capacity via the Demand and Resource Information System (DARIS). (This provides a set of standard reports, which allows analysis of CAD incidents and Contact Handling System (CHS) demands).
The Quality Assurance Review Team (QART) will regularly review the DIVERT tag list using the DARIS system.
QART will also be available to carry out urgent reviews using DARIS system to conduct further investigations.
It is recommended that the MPS should consider developing a countdown or flagging system to highlight when attendance at an incident is delayed.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
As per the above response.