Police fail in care of unconscious man

The care provided to a man by police officers while he was unconscious in a Manukau cell was not appropriate, the police watchdog has found.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) has described a three-hour delay in getting the man to a hospital ‘‘unreasonable.’’

On September 15, 2019, police were called to a property where the man was shouting, swearing, and possibly assaulting his partner, the IPCA decision said. The man was drunk and had been hitting his head against a wall.

Officers found the man asleep in the driveway. When he was woken up he became aggressive and was uncooperative.

The man was put in handcuffs. He then tried to bang his head on a fence and hit his head on the concrete driveway, before police took him to a custody unit.

The IPCA said at this point the man should have been taken directly to hospital instead.

At the custody unit the man was left in the prisoner transport truck for 44 minutes while a decision was made whether to take him to hospital or not, which the IPCA said was also unacceptable.

Eventually the man was placed in a cell and not put into the recovery position as the IPCA said he should have been.

It was over an hour later before the man was seen by a police doctor, who then said the man needed to go to hospital.

Despite this, the IPCA said the man was then left to lie unresponsive in the cell for almost an hour before being taken to hospital.

‘‘Police policy says that if a person in their care is only partially responsive, police should treat it as a medical emergency and the person should be taken to hospital,’’ authority chairman Judge Colin Doherty said.

‘‘This was not done and police failed in their duty of care.’’

In a statement issued shortly after the finding was released by the IPCA yesterday, Counties Manukau district commander superintendent Jill Rogers said police accept the standard of care given to the man was not good enough.

‘‘While the staff were all working with good intent, there was definitely areas for improvement relating to this incident,’’ Rogers said.

‘‘Since this occurred, Police has implemented significant changes to the Custody Unit.’’

Rogers added ‘‘overall, our staff do an excellent job of providing care to those who we come across but there are situations such as this one where it’s important that we learn from where we went wrong.’’