A coroner has stated her intention to issue a Preventing Future Deaths report after concluding an inquest in to the death of Lee Bowman, who was found deceased between two fence panels in Doncaster in South Yorkshire in January 2022. Mr Bowman had been reported missing to Nottinghamshire Police in November 2021 (because he lived in Ollerton), but enquiries suggested he was in the Doncaster area. South Yorkshire Police took over the investigation, before closing it after claiming to have seen Mr Bowman “alive and well” in the centre of Doncaster. The coroner has stated claimed sightings of the missing man were false and not followed up sufficiently, which then lead to SYP closing their investigation, only for Mr Bowman’s body to be found in a badly decomposed state on 2nd January.
Mr Bowman had a history of mental health problems, stemming from sexual abuse he suffered as a child and addiction issues. On the day he was last seen, there had been a family argument after his use of alcohol and he left. His brother reported him missing a couple of days later because he would normally ring his family several times a day, but they heard nothing. The investigation proved sensitive and complicated. Mr Bowman’s daughter, Corrina, said officers who dealt with her call were blunt and disinterested and their closing of their father’s search led to her making an attempt on her life after which she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Following a lack of any further contact or activity in his finances, the police were re-contacted and re-opened their investigation. Almost a month later, Mr Bowman’s body was found and HM Coroner has concluded she cannot be certain about his cause of death because of the condition in which he was found. This includes a forensic pathologist stating it’s impossible to rule out assault. Various potential causes of death were given, including hypothermia and positional asphyxia. It’s all very sad and no wonder questions remain for his family.
DIAGNOSTIC OVER-SHADOWING
We remain to see what the Coroner will state in the PFD notice to the College of Policing, but the thing striking me when reading media coverage was the obviously potential for assumptions and attitudes to have affected this response. Because of Mr Bowman’s known use or abuse of alcohol and drugs, his ongoing mental health problems, attitudes seem to have been ready to believe he did not wish to be found. I was also interested in the use of the word “false” for the sightings in Doncaster. Does this mean the claim of a sighting was false, that he hadn’t actually been seen at all; or merely that the claimed sighting someone thought was Mr Bowman turned out to be someone else?! … or don’t we know. Certainly, the Coroner stated the claimed sightings were not followed up sufficiently.
You may or may not know the term “diagnostic over-shadowing” – this is the idea that where mental health problems are known (and I’m including substance misuse and addiction), they can tend to be thought of as the explanation for all manner things which can then turn out to have a different explanation altogether. In an unrelated example, you might find an allegation a person has committed an offence and because it becomes known they have a mental health problem, it is assumed that explains the offence (and by extension, that it’s best treated as a “health issue”). Of course, this is sometimes true, but it very often isn’t.
It’s also a term used within healthcare itself: someone is claiming to have pains, symptoms or health problems which are not mental health related, but the fact they have mental health problems means the complaint is written off to their known difficulties. Always worth bearing in mind, those of us with mental health problems have significantly poorer physical health than those without – to the extent life-expectancy for an adult with serious mental illness can be as much as twenty years below the average.
OUT OF CHARACTER
Where someone with mental health problems including substance misuse or addiction goes missing, to what extent does this over-shadow proper consideration of the other factors which may be involved? We know in Mr Bowman’s case his family were at pains to stress the unusual change in behaviour – specifically, his regular phone calls were absent. We know family and close friends flagging out-of-character behaviour can be ignored at peril, so in this case it’s difficult to understand why, especially when we learn Mr Bowman’s daughter struggled to the point she made an attempt on her own life and was sectioned.
The only point I’m aiming to make here is about the dangers of assumptions and attributing all aspects of behaviour to someone’s mental health problems when we know people are always so much more than a product of those problems.
This is a very sad case and of course, I will update this post when I learn what the PFD notice says.
UPDATE 090624 – the Coroner’s PFD notice is now published, as is the response from the College of Policing.
I read both documents and feel my original emphasis on diagnostic over-shadowing was probably correct. There are some fair points in the College’s response (esp, for example difficulties accessing a missing person’s bank account before they are thought to be a high-risk missing person), but we seem to have little emphasis on how the overall assumptions about lifestyle consequences of mental health, drugs and alcohol perhaps led to attitudes being sub-optimal.
I’m very grateful to Mr Bowman’s daughter, Corrina for drawing to my attention the documents had been published – I’ll need to think more about them and whether another post may be beneficial.
Winner of the President’s Medal,
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Winner of the Mind Digital Media Award
All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2023
I try to keep this blog up to date, but inevitably over time, amendments to the law as well as court rulings and other findings from inquests and complaints processes mean it is difficult to ensure all the articles and pages remain current. Please ensure you check all legal issues in particular and take appropriate professional advice where necessary.
Government legislation website – www.legislation.gov.uk
Mental Health Cop 