Response to 999 call - West Midlands Police, January 2018

On 30 January 2018 at 7.08pm, a 999 call was placed to West Midlands Police reporting a man being attacked in an address in Small Heath, Birmingham. The call was graded as requiring an immediate response, meaning that police should be deployed as soon as possible and within 15 minutes of receiving the call.

The call ended at 7.12pm. At the time of the call there were no available units to despatch to the incident. At 7.34pm two police officers became available and were deployed to the incident, they arrived at the reported address at 7.41pm. On arrival the officers found that the reported address was incorrect. Therefore, another call was placed to the caller to obtain the correct address, where officers arrived at 7.47pm. When they arrived, they found the man unconscious and not breathing, and called an ambulance. The man was later pronounced dead by paramedics.

This incident was referred to us on 9 February 2018 and was declared an independent investigation on 13 February 2018.

During our investigation we collected recordings of the original phone call to the police along with the incident log of the call on the night. We took a statement from the call handler who received the original call. We also obtained a statement regarding call demands and resourcing at the time of the call. We also received statements from a parallel criminal investigation, including accounts from the police officers who first attended the incident.

Evidence indicated that, while the response to the 999 call took longer than the 15 minutes identified in the policy, the incident was resourced as soon as possible when units became available. First aid was administered to the man when officers arrived until the ambulance service took over.

We found no evidence to suggest that the actions of West Midlands Police caused or contributed to the man’s death.

During the investigation there was no indication any police officer may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence.