Police contact with man preceding murder – Derbyshire Constabulary, February 2020

On 15 February 2020, a vulnerable man was found dead and a woman, who acted in an unofficial capacity as the man’s live-in carer, was convicted of his murder.

After the woman moved in with the vulnerable man, neighbours called the police to report welfare concerns on five separate occasions between December 2018 and December 2019. Our investigation focused on the police response to those five incidents.

We specifically investigated the actions and decisions of Derbyshire Constabulary in relation to the incidents and whether local and national policies and procedures were followed.

We obtained and analysed the incident logs for the five previous incidents. Derbyshire Constabulary shared witness statements from the neighbours who reported the earlier incidents to the police. We reviewed and analysed these statements for our investigation. We also analysed statements from the officers who attended the earlier incidents.

Our investigation concluded in October 2020.

We concluded there was no indication that a person serving with the police committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner justifying the bringing of disciplinary proceedings.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

We identified two areas of organisational learning in respect of a new local vulnerable adult policy and improvements to the incident logs and the way they link previous incidents. We progressed these under Paragraph 28A of the Police Reform Act 2002.