Police contact with man before his death - North Yorkshire Police, October 2022
On 5 October 2022, a woman contacted West Yorkshire Police to report concerns for her husband’s welfare as he was experiencing difficulties with his mental health and had locked himself inside their home.
The incident was transferred to North Yorkshire Police (NYP) as the couple resided in that force area and officers attended their home where they found the man.
The officers provided first aid before advanced medically trained officers, paramedics and critical care paramedics arrived to provide critical medical treatment. The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
We investigated the police response to the report for the man’s safety.
We obtained documentary evidence, police radio recordings and body worn video footage.
We also obtained witness statements from the officers involved in responding to this incident which included their decisions and actions at the man’s home.
It appeared that the man had attempted to take his own life prior to officers arriving at his home.
The investigation found no evidence that any NYP police officer or member of staff may have acted in a manner which would justify disciplinary action. All police officers and staff were treated as witnesses and cooperated fully with this investigation.
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 case we identified organisational learning for the delivery a death message to family members.
IOPC reference
Recommendations
The IOPC recommends that all North Yorkshire police officers both new and old receive training in delivering the death message to family members.
This follows a case where officers were called to reports of a male who had locked himself in his home address and his partner was concerned for his wellbeing due to his mental health issues. As family members were already at the property it fell to officers who were at the scene to deliver the death message. When interviewing key officers, training around the death message was something they felt would have been beneficial to them. This was due to the fact officers realised the importance of doing this correctly and although the senior officer that was interviewed felt well equipped to do this, they recognised that younger colleagues may not feel equipped.
Recommendation accepted:
This action is currently sat with CI Hunter from our Learning and Development Department. Arrangements have been made as follows:
New students and transferees are provided with a classroom input and this is further supported by a college learn module. This input includes a speaker who delivers national learning packages of lived experience which includes videos.
For current frontline officers a Learning and Development 7-point bulletin was published on the Source (force intranet) in October 2023. This covers all the key points of the College's package.
This will feature in our new central information point for L&D briefings when it goes live in 2024.
This will be briefed out in the New Year as a briefing item to all commands. It has not been mandated but we have stressed the importance of self-guided professionalism.