Jason Devoti

(1) Chief Inspector who investigated the incident on behalf of West Midlands Police, accepted in his evidence to the inquest that the West Midlands Police had failed not only to deal this particular incident log, but also many other P2 incident logs which were open at the time, as should have; (2) The four police Dispatchers working the Bournville control room gave evidence to the inquest that: (a) At the time of these events a very large number ( 150-200 ) of P2 incident logs would regularly be outstanding at the beginning of a shift; (b) That many of those logs would be "overdue" which meant not only that had passed the one hour deadline, but in fact that more than 6 hours had passed since the log was last looked at; (c) That those operating the terminals which would have to try to deal with these logs were overwhelmed by the number of logs they had to deal with; (d) That if there was an escalation process in force at the time, then: Either dispatchers_were_not sufficiently_aware_of the_process SO as log They being say-likely they they to be able to act in accordance with it; or were given the impression by supervisors that there was little in escalating overdue logs to them as there was little that could be done; (e) That the reason for the large number of logs being overdue was mainly because there were insufficient officers to deploy to incidents, but also because there were not enough staff in the control room to work through the That measures taken to reduce the number of overdue logs known as would provide only temporary respite before the number of overdue logs built up again; That at various times since these events, there had been little improvement in_thesituation:_in January 2019 the situation was "still overwhelming" in June 2019 there would always be a lot of overdue logs ); in October 2019 there were still too many P2 logs that were not being dealt with time ); the current situation is "a little better" in that "more robust decisions are taken by call takers" , but there are still problems now, and "the crux is that we dontt have enough police officers on the streets to deal with incidents" heard evidence from a Senior Leader within the West Midlands Police's Force Contact Deparment about changes which have been in place to try to deal with the problems identified above_ was told that: (a) Figures suggested that compared with backlog of 189 P2 logs in the Bournville Control Room in October 2018, there were 54 P2 logs open on 8.10.19, and 27 open on 7.1.20; (b) A new Command & Control system is due to be introduced shortly; The triage terminal at Bournville would no longer hold onto open logs, but would only review new logs and pass them onto other terminals straightaway; (d) Dispatchers would be able to identify differing levels of risk within P2 incidents; and tag those with higher levels of risk for supervisors to be aware of; (e) Whilst there were still the same numbers of logs coming through, control rooms were better able to manage how to deal with them, resulting in decrease in the number of outstanding logs which required resourcing (4) In order to try to assist with understanding the figures involved, was provided with a number of tables designed to give "snapshot" of current logs and available police resources at particular times viz. 8-9 October 2018, 8 October 2019 and 7 October 2020. In my view; this provided limited assistance as (a) the column giving the total of logs open appeared to be incorrect as it did not tally with the figures within other columns; and (b) it was not possible to see how many of the open logs were overdue; and in particular how many of the P2 logs had passed the critical one hour mark without a response_ (5) am concerned at how overwhelmed those working in the Bournville control room had been by the increased demand on resources and how their views about any improvement in the situation in the months following Jason's death did not appear to match what was told by was also concerned about the lack of awareness of and implementation of whatever escalation process may have been in place in the control room at the time of these events; this suggests a lack of appropriate training: Whilst understand that the West Midlands force is undergoing period of transition so far as their control rooms are concerned, am not satisfied that measures have yet been put in place to ensure that all those working in control rooms have received sufficient and appropriate training to deal with situations of increased demand: therefore remain concerned_ that in times of increased demand,and particularly They being point logs; being put unanticipated demand, there is a risk that West Midlands Police will be unable to resource and attend a P2 incident within the 60 minute period that is their stated aim, and that that in turn will create a risk of death of the subject of such a P2 incident; if vulnerable and at some risk of harm as Jason Devoti undoubtedly was