Handling of missing person’s investigation - West Midlands Police and Warwickshire Police, September 2017

On 18 September 2017 a man was reported missing to Warwickshire Police by his mother and to West Midlands Police (WMP) by his partner. This was following an earlier argument on 17 September 2017 with his partner who he lived with. His partner saw him grab her morphine tablets, but he told her he had disposed of them.

Warwickshire Police assessed the man as a high-risk missing person. The incident was referred to WMP at 12.49am, who commenced an incident log. At 1am the incident was referred back to Warwickshire and then back to WMP at 1.53am. The incident was referred back to WMP via e-mail, which according to the WMP incident log was not actioned until 6.05 am.

At 7.31am, a WMP officer was dispatched to visit the man’s partner and his parents. As part of the ongoing investigation, at 1.48 pm, a missing person log was commenced. The man was graded as medium risk. At 4.16pm, his girlfriend notified WMP that she had found him, unconscious, in his car. The man was declared dead at 5.30pm in hospital.

The man’s parents raised complaints about some of the contact they had with police officers during the course of their enquiries into their son being missing.

During the investigation, investigators examined the man’s mobile phone records and obtained statements from several witnesses as well as telephone recordings and airwaves transmissions. They also obtained a statement from a WMP officer under the misconduct caution for a number of allegations involving the risk assessment and grading for the missing person investigation.

We considered that, at the time of the incident, the WMP officer was inexperienced. This was the first time the officer was tasked to take a missing person report through the control room. While there were gaps in recording and actions taken, there was no evidence to indicate any of this was done in bad faith. Based on the evidence available, we were of the opinion that the officer’s poor performance should be addressed through the first stage of the unsatisfactory performance procedure.

We also identified performance issues for a second WMP officer in respect of their contact with the man’s parents; and for a third WMP officer, in respect of their contact with the man’s parents and how they conducted a search of the missing man’s car.

After reading our report, WMP proposed the following: for the first officer, this would be addressed through a learning debrief, which would also include opportunities to understand the broader issues to consider in relation to missing persons’ investigations; for the second officer, the force proposed management action around their manner of speaking with the man’s family; and for the third officer, both issues should be addressed as individual reflection and learning.

We agreed that their proposals were appropriate in the circumstances.

Our investigation highlighted some areas for improvement for both WMP and Warwickshire Police around updating live incident logs; for Warwickshire Police, around ensuring that, when a high-risk incident is transferred to another force, this is confirmed verbally by the control room Inspector; and for WMP, around handling emails in the force control room.

Both forces agreed to share this learning with relevant staff for dissemination.