A woman was found dead after welfare concerns reported - Thames Valley Police, April 2020

On 27 April 2020, Thames Valley Police responded to reports concerning the welfare of a woman in Oxfordshire who had gone for a walk and had not returned. Thames Valley Police immediately classified the woman as a missing person and several police units were deployed to search the local area. They could not find the missing woman. Police later used cell-site to locate the missing woman’s phone and located the woman in a woodland area. Unfortunately, the woman was declared dead at the scene.

We analysed the documents created by Thames Valley Police in relation to the incident and were able to analyse risk assessments and decision making. We analysed the police radio transmissions and 999 emergency call. We interviewed several police officers and we obtained witness statements in relation to their involvement.

We concluded that based on the available evidence, there was no indication any police officer had behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or had committed a criminal offence. We suggested two officers could benefit from a reminder around the importance to review information and upload it to systems in a timely manner.

In our opinion, Thames Valley Police were not required to make any determinations because we were satisfied that the report did not raise any performance issues. We shared our conclusions with Thames Valley Police.

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. We did not identify any organisational learning from this investigation.