Recommendations - Cambridgeshire Constabulary, September 2021

Cambridgeshire Constabulary · Ref: 2020/142999

Recommendation date: 6 September 2021

Response due: 1 November 2021

Published: 9 December 2021

Welfare and vulnerable people

A member of the public contacted Cambridgeshire Constabulary to report her child as missing from the family home. A missing person investigation began and was initially assessed as medium risk. After the investigation began, the member of the public reported that her child had made sexual abuse allegations against her stepfather prior to going missing. The missing person investigation remained at medium risk for the following seven weeks, during which the investigation was reviewed by a Detective Inspector seven times. After approximately seven weeks, following concerns regarding lack of proof of life, the investigation was re-graded as high risk by another officer. Two days later, a homicide investigation began into the child’s disappearance, with the parents treated as suspects.

View on IOPC website

Recommendations (3)

Recommendation 1 Accepted

Recommendation

RecommendationsRecommendation 1 The IOPC recommends that Cambridgeshire Constabulary should review its processes for the supervision of medium risk missing persons investigation to ensure that: This recommendation follows an IOPC investigation into the investigation of a missing person which found a … Read more

Force Response

Accepted action: Cambridgeshire Police have used the learning that has come from the investigation in question to inform an array of improvement measures around the supervision of future MFH investigations. A full review of current processes was conducted. Through a … Read more

Recommendation 2 Accepted

Recommendation

The IOPC recommends that Cambridge Constabulary should develop and roll out additional training to Response Team officers in relation to missing person investigations, to include: This follows an IOPC investigation relating to a missing person investigation which was re-classified as … Read more

Force Response

Accepted action: he training of response and investigative officers has been addressed both directly through the creation and delivery of specific training packages but also through structural additions, namely the Vulnerability Focus Desks. The latter are a pivotal development in … Read more

Recommendation 3 Accepted

Recommendation

The IOPC recommends that Cambridgeshire Constabulary takes steps to ensure it provides clear direction to officers on handling and recording allegations of crime which come to light during a missing person investigation. In particular, that appropriate guidance is provided regarding … Read moreThe IOPC recommends that Cambridgeshire Constabulary takes steps to ensure it provides clear direction to officers on handling and recording allegations of crime which come to light during a missing person investigation. In particular, that appropriate guidance is provided regarding the handling of allegations of sexual abuse, domestic abuse or (so-called) Honour Based Abuse – and the potential relevance of such allegations to the investigation. Our investigation found that, in the days following the missing person report, it was disclosed to Cambridgeshire Constabulary that the missing person made allegations of sexual abuse against her stepfather days before being reported. The stepfather was later convicted of murdering the missing person. These allegations were disclosed to police on multiple occasions during the missing person investigation, with multiple officers and staff receiving this information from different sources. However, no crime was recorded, and the allegations were not investigated until seven weeks after the initial missing person report. The College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice (APP) stipulates that where sexual offences are disclosed during a missing person investigation “but were not the original reported incident, this information should be passed to the force intelligence capability and investigated”. During our investigation, we noted that APP also instructs officers investigating missing persons to consider that part of an abuser’s strategy may be to report the victim missing to portray false concern to cover up abuse or homicide. Although Cambridgeshire Constabulary's local guidance on missing persons (the Manual of Standards) refers to domestic and sexual abuse as a “push factor”, there is no guidance to officers on how such information should be handled, recorded or shared. In this case, concerns about the perpetrator may have been raised earlier if these allegations had been handled in line with the APP and investigated more thoroughly and at an earlier juncture, indicating a need to bring local procedure into line with national guidance. Do you accept the recommendation? Yes Show less

Force Response

Accepted action: This is again an area where we have taken the broadest possible strategic response. Firstly, we have ensured the wider enhancement of our force wide investigative standards through a complete remodelling of our scrutiny, supervision and performance monitoring … Read more