Police response to locate a missing man – Northamptonshire Police, October 2021

On 22 October 2021 at 11:40pm, a member of the public contacted Northamptonshire police reporting that a man was walking along the A45 carriageway near Earls Barton, Wellingborough. It was recorded in the incident log that he was walking against the traffic near to a petrol garage. The call was graded as requiring an emergency response.

At 11.51pm, two officers were assigned to the incident and searched both sides of the carriageway for approximately 10 minutes. The officers updated that they could not find the man and attended another incident. The initial incident was then closed. On 23 October 2021 at 12:30am, a member of the public contacted police stating the man was in the carriageway and stated that they nearly hit him. The same response officers were assigned to the incident.

At 12:45am, it was reported that the man had been struck by a car driven by a member of the public. An ambulance attended and confirmed that the man had died from his injuries.

During the investigation, we obtained call recordings, radio transmissions between officers and their force control room, incident logs, policies. We took numerous witness statements from control room staff and response officers.

There was no indication of any misconduct identified during the investigation.

An inquest was held in January 2023 and determined the man’s death was accidental.

We recognised there were errors in relation to how the location of where the man was sighted was recorded on the incident log. This in turn, appeared to have led to confusion within the log, and the correct search area was not communicated to the response officers by the dispatcher. Furthermore, the evidence showed that response officers incorrectly identified one of the junctions resulting in a shortened search area.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system, and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

We issued learning recommendations in relation to recording locations on relevant logs. We recommended that Northamptonshire Police review the appropriateness of the pre-determined list of locations for the A45 in their internal system. The force should consider what improvements can be made to allow the recording of junction numbers and ensure the list appears in geographical order.

We also issued a recommendation under Paragraph 28A of the Police Reform Act 2002.