Woman sustains life-changing injuries after contact with police - Avon and Somerset Constabulary, April 2018

On 9 April 2018, Avon and Somerset Constabulary officers attended an emergency call at Clifton Suspension Bridge, following a report of a woman attempting to climb the wall. Officers spoke with the woman and, following enquiries, drove the woman to a location close to her home, where they believed her partner was expecting her.

On 11 April 2018, the same woman jumped from a third-storey window and sustained life-changing injuries.

During the investigation, our investigators obtained CCTV and statements from witnesses. We interviewed the officer who had interacted with the woman, and took witness statements from the other officers who attended the scene. We obtained data from the officer’s radio and examined the information entered onto police systems.

Evidence indicated that the officer appeared to have interacted with the woman in good faith. The officer had established that the woman was making plans to go see a doctor, and seek legal advice, which suggested she was making plans for the future. He also completed a mental health monitoring form. Based on what was in front of them, the officer and his colleagues formed the view that the woman was not in need of immediate care and control, and they therefore did not contact the mental health crisis team. The officer who took charge of the decision making told us he was not made aware that the woman had attempted to climb the wall of the bridge.

We were of the opinion that, while the officer could have made different judgement calls, with the benefit of hindsight, the evidence did not indicate that he had misconducted himself. Our view was that this was a case of the officer needing to reflect and learn in order to potentially improve future service delivery.

We completed our investigation in November 2018.

After reviewing our report, Avon and Somerset Constabulary agreed that the officer would receive management action by means of a debrief.

Our investigation also highlighted areas of learning for the force around exploring potential sharing of mental health monitoring forms regarding out-of-hours incidents via triage/crisis teams, and reviewing the availability of mental health awareness training provision to officers. Avon and Somerset advised that the entire referral system was currently under review, and that almost all uniformed frontline supervisors had received new and bespoke training on mental health in the past year.