Police control room sent no one to home of woman found dead

Police control room staff did not send any officers to the home of a woman who was found dead in a cupboard there 12 hours later, a report has found.

A family member contacted Police Scotland at around 1.55pm on May 8 2018, to report concern for the woman she had not seen or heard from since May 5.

She told them the woman was on the police interim Vulnerable Person Database (VPD).

Despite this, police initially graded her as a Low Risk Missing Person, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) report found.

The family member’s call was identified as a Grade 2 call – which requires Area Control Room staff to make every effort to allocate resources within 15 minutes of the call being accepted.

However, there were no officers available as they were already dealing with other priority incidents.

As no resources had been deployed by 5pm on May 8 a police sergeant went to the address in Musselburgh, East Lothian, “on his own initiative”.

As there was no reply, he returned at 9pm as he was still concerned for the woman’s welfare.

He managed to get in by slipping the lock, but found nothing during a cursory search.

When he returned to the police station he learned that the Social Work department and a family member had provided more information about the woman and the incident was declared a Missing Person Enquiry.

Other officers went to the 39-year-old woman’s home where they carried out a search.

Her body was found in a cupboard at around 2.30am on May 9, with the cause of death determined as “Alcoholic Ketoacidosis”.

PIRC has made a number of recommendations including that police should review the resource management and non-deployment of officers to the incident and take any necessary action to address ongoing shortfalls.