Perhaps you will be aware the Times newspaper covered a story in September about Right Care, Right Person, emphasising the stories of Sophie Cotton, Robin Woolforth and Ricki Gillatt and giving their relatives’ perspectives on inquests for two of them, which heard the police should have responded to 999 calls made – Robin’s inquest is yet to be held, but his family is already campaigning because of what they allege are similar problems.
In this week’s Times, chief reporter Fiona Hamilton again covers the topic (£), this time highlighting the case of Christian Parker in Worcestershire. Christian died in October 2024 after consuming a fatal overdose. Prior to doing so, he sent a text message to his mother, Heather Mullen, outlining what he was doing and we can only imagine the desperation as she pleaded with him not to do it whilst also trying to ring 999. Christian had been specific about what he was doing so it was with some confidence she was able to claim it was a life-threatening situation and the response of West Mercia Police was to say it was an ambulance call and they deflected it to paramedics.
Somewhat obviously, there were likely to need forced entry to the premises because the circumstances inherently suggested Christian could be non-responsive by the time they arrived. When paramedics asked for the police to do so, West Mercia again declined to attend, stating it was for the Fire Service to do this. In total, two hours were exhausted between the 999 call and FRS entry to the property. Christian was found barely alive and was taken swiftly to the Royal Worcester Hospital where sadly, he died as a result of the overdose.
INQUEST
I’ve rehearsed various arguments about all this and won’t repeat them – this is not the first time we see the police declining to attend what everyone does accept is a medical emergency and to argue it is for the Fire and Rescue Service to attend and force entry.
Two quick points on the FRS issue –
- If the decision to request FRS is delayed until the ambulance service know they can’t secure access, it is building in delay to what is already a time-critical emergency.
- I’ve written to the National Fire Chiefs Council to ask their position on RCRP, not least because they are not signatories to the National Partnership Agreement which was agreed between the police and the NHS.
What mostly concerns me about this sad case, however, is it appears to raise the issue of integrity – and it’s not the first inquest where we’ve been compelled to worry about this.
TRANSCRIPT
During the inquest hearing which was attended by a Times journalist, DC Lewis Cleaves from the force’s Professional Standards Department told the court an internal investigation had found “we should have attended”. This was welcomed by the Coroner who decided on the basis of what he heard from the police, not to issue a Preventing Future Deaths report.
Mrs Mullen, who first alerted me to Christian’s case and consented to me writing this post about it, was also in court for the inquest and told me directly she heard the same thing as the journalist. When asked by the Times for a comment in response to their impending article, West Mercia’s press team suggested the attending journalist “misheard” the evidence and when challenged about that decided against responding to follow-up questions by Fiona Hamilton, who also obtained a transcript of the inquest.
It outlines the Coroner clearly stating West Mercia Police’s acceptance that it –
“Failed to properly discharge its duty of care towards Mr Parker by ensuring that a police officer attended his address when its staff were first made aware of his likely overdose.”
West Mercia did not respond to further questions about the transcript’s clarification that no-one misheard what was said.
So we now have to worry about more than the scheme itself – we have to worry about integrity. In response to other inquests which generated a PFD notice, I have already had reason to wonder about the integrity of a response to a Coroner, this now gives me a second reason to do so and there’s a further inquest pending where I’m worried about what the police told the Coroner after a sudden death, by omitting prior contacts with the man who died in the weeks prior to his apparent suicide and I was recently given reason to worry about NPCC claims that PFD notices are being analysed for “lessons learned”.
The stakes have just gone up, it seems – and they still won’t talk about this.
Awarded the President’s Medal, by
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, 2025
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 