Investigation into police contact with a man experiencing mental health issues – Essex Police, August 2022
A member of the public contacted the police to report a man causing a disturbance and behaving erratically in a social club. Members of the public had restrained the man, who had broken several items and collided with people in the club.
Police officers arrived and placed the man in handcuffs with help from members of the public. The man struggled and officers applied leg restraints. Officers tried to find out what had happened in the club while the man continued to struggle against the restraints. The officers believed the man may have Acute Behavioural Disorder (ABD).
The man stopped struggling and appeared to lose consciousness. More officers arrived to help, and an ambulance was called. The ambulance graded the incident as a non-emergency. The officers decided to take the man to hospital in their police car, using blue lights as an emergency response.
The officers carried the man into the hospital with help from hospital staff. They told hospital staff they believed the man had ABD and updated them with other relevant information. The officers removed the handcuffs and leg restraints. The man sadly died the next day in hospital.
We received a death or serious injury referral from the force and decided to independently investigate the nature and extent of police contact with the man and whether the police may have caused or contributed to his death.
We examined the officers’ use of force including handcuffs and leg restraints, the care the man received, whether officers considered the man’s mental health, and their decision to take the man to hospital.
Our investigators attended the scene and the post-incident procedure, obtaining statements from police officers. We analysed body worn video and CCTV footage and considered the post-mortem and toxicology reports. The actions of the police officers were reviewed against local and national policy and guidance. All police officers were treated as witnesses in our 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 officers acted within force policies and national guidance, and recognised the man was experiencing a mental health episode requiring emergency treatment. The risk to the man’s health was sufficient enough to justify using a police car to take the man to hospital. In doing so, the man arrived at hospital within three minutes.
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 in this case, but we did contact the ambulance service with regards to a review into their response to police reports of a medical emergency.