Investigation into police handling of safeguarding concerns for elderly man – Nottinghamshire Police, June 2023
A woman called the police to report concerns for her tenant – an elderly man who she had not seen for more than a week. She said this was unusual, and after entering his home, she had found it unusually tidy with evidence of drug use and clothing that did not belong to him.
The landlady reported concerns about a homeless woman that her tenant had allowed to live with him. She had previously contacted the police with concerns that her tenant was likely being abused by this woman.
The man’s nephew also contacted the police after speaking to the landlady. He said he was aware of issues between his uncle and the homeless woman, and that she had taken his life savings over time and had threatened him.
Officers went to the man’s home and found him dead in the cellar with multiple stab wounds. The police identified and arrested three people on suspicion of the man’s murder. Research on police systems revealed the man had had issues with the homeless woman leading to various safeguarding concerns between May 2021 and June 2023.
The woman was found guilty of the man’s murder in December 2023 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
We received a death or serious injury referral from the force and decided to independently investigate how the police handled safeguarding concerns between May 2021 and June 2023. We examined the decisions and actions taken by officers and staff to determine the man’s safety and welfare, and whether officers and staff acted in accordance with national and local policies and procedures.
Our investigators obtained and reviewed incident logs relating to the safeguarding concerns about the man, as well as crime reports and the postmortem. We reviewed four public protection notices (PPNs) that were issued on behalf of the man. These notices are completed by the police to alert social care about safeguarding concerns. We also took statements from police officers and staff. We were unable to take statements from or interview any witnesses due to the murder investigation.
We concluded there was no indication that a person serving with the police committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner to justify disciplinary proceedings.
We found that the decisions made by officers between 2021 and 2023 were reasonable, proportionate and in line with the national decision making model. Officers offered the man support services, issuing PPNs when appropriate.
We did find that once a PPN was completed and sent to the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), the reviewing officer dealt with it in isolation. They did not review information provided in previous PPNs.
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 recommended that the force should implement a process where the MASH team review existing PPNs to look for patterns of behaviour relating to a person to help them decide whether to refer an incident to the local authority.
We also found information was not always shared once the MASH team sent a referral to the local authority. Feedback on referrals could help form intelligence about someone’s situation.
The force confirmed changes to its process in October 2025, including reviewing the last 12 months of previous PPNs to see if that would influence its decision about sharing information with social care. This enables the reviewing officer to consider all available information and detect patterns of behaviour.