Injuries received by a detainee – Lancashire Police, January 2020

On 9 January 2020, a man was arrested and taken to Preston Police Station. On 10 January 2020 he was found in his cell with a serious injury to his arm, believed to have been caused by himself with a sharp object, which was believed to have been brought into custody by the man.

We took statements from the officers and staff that the man had contact with while in custody and reviewed body worn video and CCTV footage.

During the investigation we found no indication any police officer may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence. We were also of the view that there were no performance issues or any need for organisational learning or improvement

However, we identified some areas of learning for individual officers including an issue raised by one of the officers in their statement.

We provided a full report to Lancashire Police who agreed with our findings.