It’s up to you, 999 worker told mental patient just before he killed a man

‘I’ll have to deal with him myself’

A MENTAL patient who called 999 to warn he would take the law into his own hands stabbed a man to death after a police call handler said: ‘ That’s entirely up to you.’

‘ Deluded and psychotic’ Derek Hancock, 42, killed Robert Cox at a hostel for mental patients just minutes after speaking to operator Susan Akerman.

Details of the call between Akerman and Hancock emerged at the inquest into Mr Cox’s death, which ended yesterday.

Last night, the police watchdog ordered the force to make changes, describing the training given to call handlers as ‘inadequate’.

Hancock was jailed for a minimum of four years and five months in December 2014 after admitting manslaughter by diminished responsibility, and Avon and Somerset Police sacked Akerman in March 2015 following an investigation into the stabbing on the night of August 9, 2013.

During the inquest at Avon Coroner’s Court in Flax Bourton, near Bristol, jurors were told Hancock phoned police three times that night to complain that he was being sexually harassed by Mr Cox, 24, a father of two.

In the third conversation, which lasted two minutes and 54 seconds, he told Akerman: ‘Well, I’m just going to have to deal with him myself.’ She replied, ‘OK, well if you take the law into your own hands...’ before he interrupted, demanding Mr Cox be arrested. Akerman assured him the situation would be ‘dealt with in a way we see fit,’ before he threatened: ‘I will take the law into my own hands because the law is not doing anything.’ She said: ‘Well, that’s entirely up to you Derek, OK?’

He replied: ‘ Yeah, I will do, because he’s threatening the law already by threatening behaviour.’ Akerman ended the call by saying: ‘OK.’ Minutes later, Mr Cox was killed at the hostel in Bristol.

Akerman told the inquest she did not know Hancock was mentally ill and did not believe his threats, adding: ‘Call handlers hear that three or four times a day – “If you don’t come I’m just going to deal with it myself”.

‘At no point did I think Derek Hancock was going to take the law into his own hands to the extremes he did.’ The two other call handlers who spoke to Hancock that night were found to have acted professionally, but coroner Maria Voisin said police staff had not ‘recognised or understood’ his mental health issues.

Jurors returned a verdict of unlawful killing and said interactions between police call handlers and officers ‘were likely to have exacerbated the situation’.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said call handlers should log addresses of vulnerable people, and need training to deal with mental patients.

Guido Liguori, of the IPCC, said: ‘Calls made by Mr Hancock in the months leading up to the incident were neither linked nor marked as being made from a home with vulnerable residents.’

Avon and Somerset Police said it had brought in mental healthcare staff to work alongside operators.