Response to missing person’s report - Warwickshire Police, July 2017
In the early hours on 20 July 2017, Warwickshire Police received a report of a missing young woman. Concerned that she hadn’t returned home after going out the night before, the woman’s father had visited a police station twice during the night (at 1.35am and 4.59am) and had spoken to police staff on an intercom – the second call was cut off. The woman’s mother then called the police at approximately 5.30am to report her as missing, and explained that she had a mental health condition and may harm herself. The call handler graded this as a ‘medium’ priority missing person report.
Two officers went to the parents’ home around 6am to take details and search for information that may help to locate her. Police made a number of enquiries to try and find the woman. After receiving information that she had expressed suicidal thoughts recently, the risk was reassessed and increased to ‘high’ before midday. A trace on the woman’s mobile phone gave the location of a hotel. Officers made enquiries there, but nobody recognised her. At approximately 1pm, hotel staff found the woman dead in one of the rooms.
During the investigation, investigators interviewed police officers, police staff and members of the woman’s family. They also examined police records and voice recordings. We served two call handlers with notices that their actions were under investigation.
Based on the evidence available, at the end of the investigation, we were of the opinion that the two call handlers who had responded to the woman’s father’s intercom calls may have a case to answer for misconduct for breaching the standards of professional behaviour: the first call handler for not gathering sufficient information from him to be able to risk assess the circumstances around his daughter’s absence and for not creating an incident log, which would have required further details to be obtained; the second call handler for not creating an incident log and not conducting further intelligence checks, and not making contact with the woman’s mother on her mobile when the intercom call cut off. We completed our investigation in April 2018.
After reviewing our report, Warwickshire Police agreed that the first call handler had a case to answer for misconduct and would receive management action. They were of the view that the second call handler, who had less experience, had not been negligent, but that their performance was unsatisfactory and that they would be subject to unsatisfactory performance procedures.
They also added that their control room staff would be advised – and training considered – in relation to out-of-hours calls from an intercom outside a police station automatically timing out after ten minutes, how to reconnect a member of the public when the call is timed out, and ensuring signage is provided to members of the public informing them that the call will cut out after ten minutes.
An inquest into the woman’s death in summer 2018 concluded that the woman had taken her own life.