Police search for missing man -Greater Manchester Police, August 2021
In August 2021, a man was reported missing. Following a high-profile search, he was sadly found dead by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officers in Wythenshawe Park, a week later.
GMP made a mandatory referral and we independently investigated its response to the missing person report. This included speaking to those involved and reviewing body-worn video footage. We reviewed the steps taken by GMP to locate the man and whether these were appropriate and in line with national and local policies and guidance.
On conclusion of our investigation, in July 2022, we informed GMP we found there was a missed opportunity that could have led to the man being found sooner by officers.
We found officers obtained the man's mobile phone data on the day he was reported missing which, once fully analysed, identified the approximate last known location of the man's phone. This was ultimately the same place he was eventually found by officers. However, a delay in accessing specialist support meant this information was not available to investigating officers a week later.
However the evidence did not indicate anyone serving with the police may have breached the standards of professional behaviour. Instead we identified areas of organisational learning for GMP. Our recommendations were shared with the force to improve its response to missing person investigations in the future.
An inquest, which concluded in May 2023, at Manchester Coroner’s Court found the man died by suicide.
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.
In this instance, we did issue learning recommendations to improve practice.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends Greater Manchester Police issues a reminder, to all police officers and police staff whose role includes working with communications date as part of missing persons investigations, of what resources are available within GMP to assist with analysing communications data, as well as the investigative opportunities available from communications data, specific to missing persons investigation.
This follows an independent IOPC investigation which found that a high risk GMP missing person investigation obtained communications data in relation to the missing person on the first day of the investigation, however, the analysis of the data was limited to a partial analysis on the second day of the investigation. Included in the communications data, but not analysed until seven days later, was location related data which indicated possible locations of the missing person. Our investigation found that the delay in analysing this data was due to a lack of knowledge about how to analyse this type of data by those working with it, and a delay in obtaining specialist support from other resources who had the training to analyse the data fully. Had this data of been analysed when it became available to GMP on the first day of the investigation, it would have identified a geographical area that the missing person’s phone was had been, which in this case, was the last known location of the missing person’s phone and ultimately the same location the missing person was found seven days after the data became available.
Recommendation accepted:
GMP accepts this recommendation.
The Communication Liaison Unit will produce a guide to understanding the different types of Communications Data and how to interpret such data.
This will also include locations where support and assistance can be accessed.
This will be promulgated across the force by the following means:
• The Organisational Learning Hub’s “Top 3” bulletin.
• The “Brief” newsletter.
• An Intranet article
• Updated versions of the supervisors Aide Memoire for Missing Person investigations.