Police response to a report of assault - West Yorkshire Police, February 2019

On 14 November 2018, a man telephoned West Yorkshire Police (WYP) to report he had been assaulted by a man who was staying at his home. WYP recorded a crime of assault and sent two officers to his home. The suspect left the house at the police officers’ suggestion on the understanding that he would be interviewed about the allegation of assault at a later date.

On 21 December 2018, an officer contacted the victim, who reported to the officer that there had been no further incidents between him and the suspect. The officer told the victim he intended to contact the suspect to interview him. The officer contacted the suspect the same day to arrange a voluntary interview. The suspect told the officer that he was unavailable at the time. They did not agree on a future date for the interview.

On 3 January 2019, the suspect approached a WYP officer and disclosed that he had further assaulted the victim with a hammer at his home. Officers immediately visited the address and found the victim with significant head injuries. Paramedics treated him at the scene before transporting him to hospital. WYP officers arrested the suspect on suspicion of attempted murder and charged him the following day with the same offence.

On 24 February 2019, the victim died in hospital as a result of his injuries.

On 4 March 2019, WYP charged the suspect with murder and in August 2019 he was found guilty of the man’s manslaughter and sentenced to a minimum of 14 years imprisonment.

We reviewed the incident log from 14 November 2018 and the linked crime report for the assault. We also interviewed the officer who went to the victim’s house on 14 November 2018 and investigated the allegation of assault. We reviewed the body-worn video footage recorded by the officers who went to the victim’s home, which showed their interaction with both the victim and the suspect. We obtained accounts from officers involved in the allocation and management of the crime of assault reported by the victim. All officers fully co-operated with our investigation.

The available evidence indicated that police officers dealt with the report of assault in an appropriate way. There was a short delay in progressing the voluntary interview of the suspect, which could have been avoided if the availability of the investigating officer had been incorporated as one of the checks in the crime allocation process.

Based on the evidence available, there was no indication that any police officer or police staff may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence.

At the conclusion of our investigation we shared our report with WYP, who agreed with our findings.

We concluded our investigation in June 2019, but waited until the inquest into the man’s death had concluded, in early 2020, to publish its outcome.