Search for murdered girl delayed by shortage of officers

THE SEARCH for a murdered teenager was delayed by four hours because there were no available officers, the police watchdog has found.

Student Ellen Higginbottom, 18, was reported missing at about 7pm on June 16 last year and her body was found at Orrell Water Park in Wigan in the early hours of the following morning.

Mark Buckley, 52, was jailed for a minimum of 31 years for the savage and brutal attack on the teenager, described by a judge at Manchester Crown Court as “frankly chilling”.

An investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found a lack of resources at Greater Manchester Police (GMP) led to the search being delayed 13 times after she was reported missing by her father.

An IOPC spokesman said: “We found that information about Ellen being missing was placed on the police national computer (PNC) around 15 minutes after the report to GMP, shortly after 7pm on June 16.”

The report was graded as a priority response which, in accordance with GMP policies, should be resourced within an hour.

However, dispatching officers to the incident was delayed 13 times due to a lack of available patrols at GMP. They were dealing with other priority incidents.

“The report was escalated once, and there was an attempt to find officers from another division but none were available.

“Shortly after 11.30pm, following a call to GMP from Ellen’s father requesting an update, officers became available and were dispatched to Ellen’s home and began searching for her.”

The investigation found the performance of three radio operators who failed to follow the force’s escalation policy was “unsatisfactory”, but there was insufficient evidence to prove misconduct.

GMP agreed with the findings of the report and made the decision not to conduct formal proceedings but to remind the callhandlers of the policy.

IOPC regional director for the North-West Amanda Rowe said: “This is a most harrowing case, and our investigators worked hard to ensure our involvement could be concluded as quickly as possible.

“Unfortunately in this case there is no simple answer, but we hope every effort is made in future to escalate such incidents.”