Man self-harms twice in custody - West Midlands Police, July 2017

On 22 July 2017, West Midlands Police arrested a man and took him to Oldbury custody suite. On initial assessment, the man was assessed as low risk and placed in a cell.

A short time later, the man was found unconscious with his t-shirt around his neck. He regained consciousness and was then subject to constant watch by a member of staff sitting outside of his cell (level 4 observations).

In the early hours of 23 July 2017, the level of observations was lowered to level 3 – constant watch via CCTV. At 7.16am, the man was found unconscious with a t-shirt around his neck for a second time. He was initially unresponsive but then regained consciousness.

During the investigation, investigators obtained the man’s custody records, CCTV from the Oldbury custody suite and obtained accounts from police officers and a member of staff.

Evidence showed that, by allowing the man to retain clothing after he used his t-shirt to harm himself, the custody sergeants had acted in line with training: this states that the decision to remove clothing is balanced against the right to dignity of the detainee and clothing is not automatically removed at level 3 or 4.

However, contrary to policy and procedure, on taking over responsibility for the man’s detention, several custody sergeants had failed to record their risk assessment. We were of the opinion that this amounted to misconduct for two custody sergeants, and suggested this could be dealt with by way of management action. We also suggested that a third custody sergeant receive management action for failing to ensure that a Police National Computer check was completed on the man.

After reviewing our report the force agreed with our findings. The three custody sergeants received management action, including monitoring by their inspector of their performance in the above areas.