Contact between a man and police before he took his own life - Kent Police, May 2016

A man was found dead on a beach in Kent in May 2016. After an inquest into the man’s death highlighted that the man had had contact with Kent Police seven times in the two days before his death, the man’s family made a complaint to the force in May 2017. Kent Police initially investigated these complaints and concluded their investigation in August 2017. After a review of the investigation, the force realised that the complaint needed to be referred to us. We then started an investigation into Kent Police’s handling and response to the calls in September 2017.

Our investigators interviewed police members of staff who handled the man’s call, reviewed national and local policies and guidance, as well as recordings of the man’s calls to Kent Police. We also obtained the opinion of an expert police officer on mental health issue.

Each of the seven calls the man made to Kent Police, and the incident logs generated as a result, provide an indication he was suffering from mental ill health. Taken together, the calls showed a pattern of behaviour over the two days which provide evidence that the man had taken cocaine, been hospitalised, at times was confused and apparently suffering from the effects of schizophrenia. However, the calls – taken together or separately – did not indicate that he posed a risk of harm to himself or others.

The calls indicate that the man was clearly in need of professional medical care regarding his mental health. However, he had already been admitted to hospital and subsequently discharged.

There was evidence to suggest each of the calls made by the man were graded appropriately, however, service user demand led to the targeted response time for the man’s first call not being met.

We upheld two of the complaints made by the man’s relative, namely that Kent Police did not call the man when they were attempting to ascertain his whereabouts after he made his first call, and that a further visit to the man’s home was planned but not made.

We did not uphold the third complaint, which was that the man could have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. We found no evidence in any of the man’s conversations with Kent Police, or when taken as a whole, which could reasonably reach the threshold for police action to be taken in respect to ‘sectioning’ the man under the Mental Health Act.

At the end of the investigation we found no evidence of misconduct or performance issues with any members of Kent Police staff.

After reviewing our report, Kent Police agreed with our findings.