Welfare concerns reported for child - Durham Police, August 2022

On 8 August 2022, a man telephoned Durham Police reporting concerns surrounding his child. The man requested a safeguarding application as he believed his child might be at risk being around a man who had formed a relationship with the child’s mother.

Durham Police completed Police National Database checks and contacted the child’s mother to ask for further details for the man. She stated she knew no further details and had ended the relationship. Subsequently Durham Police did not progress the safeguarding application form.

On 28 September 2022, Durham Police received a call from the ambulance service requesting assistance for a 2-year-old. 

Officers attended the scene with a defibrillator and found the child unconscious. The Ambulance service also attended and took control of the child’s medical care. The child died in hospital two days later.

We obtained witness statements from police officers and police staff who reviewed the incident logs. We also obtained and reviewed telephone calls and internal communications as well as both local and national policies and procedures.

We served a police staff member who was the safeguarding hub supervisor with a notice of Investigation. We subsequently conducted a misconduct interview in relation to allegations that the supervisor did not progress the safeguarding application in line with policy. 

We decided that the police staff member had no case to answer for misconduct. We recommended that the police staff member should undertake the Reflective Practice Review Process.

An officer reflecting on their actions is a formal process reflected in legislation. The reflective practice review process consists of a fact-finding stage and a discussion stage, followed by the production of a reflective review development report. The discussion must include:

• a discussion of the practice requiring improvement and related circumstances that have been identified, and
• the identification of key lessons to be learnt by the participating officer, line management or police force concerned, to address the matter and prevent a reoccurrence of the matter.

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 the following areas for improvement:

• Durham Police assess whether there is an alternative IT process or function that can transfer the welfare report from control room to the multi-agency in a legible format.
• Durham Police ensure that the multi-agency team can readily locate the policies and are accordingly up to date withthe content.
• Durham Police review this and associated policies ensuring that they reflect current legislation and Home Office Statutory Guidance on Professional Standards, Performance and Integrity in Policing.
• Durham Police review current police staff leadership and training policies and assess the opportunity of introducing a continuous professional development programme for police staff.
• Durham police assess the multi-agency units understanding of the NDM and Code of Ethics and adequate training is provided to assist in the assessment and investigation of sensitive material.