Response to a 999 call - Hampshire Constabulary, November 2016

Shortly after midnight on 13 November 2016 a member of the public made a 999 call to Hampshire Constabulary and reported that there was a drunk, unconscious man outside his hostel room in Winchester. No police or ambulance units were dispatched. Later that morning the man who had been reported as drunk and unconscious was found dead outside the hostel room. An inquest held in October 2017 found that the man had died of acute alcohol intoxication. Publication of the outcome of our investigation was delayed until completion of the inquest.

During the investigation, investigators obtained a recording of the 999 call, CCTV footage from the hostel, Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) records relating to the call and Hampshire Constabulary’s training materials and policies relating to call handling and dispatch. The call handler and the dispatch operator who dealt with the incident, both members of police staff based at Hampshire Constabulary’s Force Control Room, were served with misconduct notices and interviewed under misconduct caution. Witness statements were taken from other police staff.

The investigation found that the caller’s focus during the 999 call appeared to be getting the drunk, unconscious man moved on, rather than concern for the man’s welfare. However, the investigation also found that the caller had said the man was unconscious and that the call handler had not recorded this on the CAD record or asked any clarifying questions about the caller’s use of the word ‘unconscious’. The dispatch operator made the decision not to dispatch police units on the basis of the incomplete information provided by the call handler.

The Lead Investigator’s opinion was that the call handler had a case to answer for misconduct, while the dispatch operator had no case to answer.

Hampshire Constabulary agreed with this assessment and proposed that the call handler be dealt with through management action. We agreed with this proposal.