Response to missing person’s report - Nottinghamshire Police, December 2018

At 10.57pm on 19 December 2018, a woman made a telephone call to Nottinghamshire Police to report her son missing. She reported she had not seen him since 4.30pm, when he went for a walk. The woman disclosed details of his son’s medical history, following which the force decided that the son was a ‘missing person’ and graded the call as priority 2, which has a recommended deployment of 60 minutes.

Officers attended the woman’s home the following morning at 8.23am to begin the investigation. While they were carrying out enquiries, they received a call saying a man had been found hanging in a wood. The body was identified as the missing son.

We investigated the actions and decisions of Nottinghamshire Police while it conducted the missing person’s enquiry. Our investigators took witness statements and examined call logs.

We were of the opinion that the force had correctly graded the call. However, evidence showed, a high volume of higher-priority incidents had come in in a short space of time, and officers were unable to attend the incident in the recommended time.

Based on the evidence available we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings, or had committed a criminal offence.

Nottinghamshire Police’s Incident Grading & Resolution Policy stipulates that, if the force cannot meet the response timeframe, the caller should be given an update. In this case, the woman wasn’t told of the delayed response until 6.53am on 20 December. We therefore recommended to the force that it should amend its policy to reflect who should provide the caller with the update, as well as when and how, and where this should be logged.

We completed our investigation in June 2019, but waited until the inquest into the man’s death had concluded, in autumn 2019, before publishing its outcomes.