National recommendation - National Police Chiefs' Council, December 2022
We identified national organisational learning from a death or serious injury report where a man was arrested for sexual assault of a victim under the age of 13. Following bail, the man took his own life.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) shares the learning from IOPC cases with force bail leads, asking them to review their bail policies, procedures and training to ensure that risk assessments are conducted when suspects of child sexual abuse offences answer bail.
This follows an IOPC review of a Death and Serious Injury (DSI) local investigation where a male under investigation for child sexual abuse offences took his own life one week after answering bail. A risk assessment was not conducted when he attended the custody suite.
There is already an expectation that suspects of child sexual abuse offences should be subject to a risk assessment when answering bail, and during other potential “trigger events”, as outlined in the College of Policing’s operational advice on Managing the risk of suicide for persons under investigation for online child sexual abuse and exploitation. However, IOPC cases have identified some inconsistent practices between different forces in how they apply this advice in relation to the use of risk assessments during such situations.
Do you accept the recommendation?
Yes
Accepted action:
This learning recommendation will be circulated on ChiefsNet for all Chief Constables to consider for wider learning and also shared with custody leads nationally whose details are held by the NPCC Custody Portfolio.