The Chief Constable of Police Scotland recently appeared before the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament and her comments about mental health demands and body worn video led to coverage in the “1919” magazine, a publication funded by the Scottish Police Federation.
Specifically, Chief Constable Jo Farrell said the impending roll-out of body worn video across all Scottish officers offers potential for the police to leave mental health patients in Emergency Departments without remaining there with them. Part of the rationale given is that officers will be able to show for the record that they left someone in “a place of safety”.
I mean, EH?! … that doesn’t make sense at all!
First things first – as we have had to do before on this website, we will need to wrestle with the unexplained detail of what the Chief Constable means by use of this “Place of Safety” phrase. It is a legal term for the location to which a vulnerable person should be removed after use of s293 Mental Health (Treatment & Care)(Scotland) Act 2003 – or MHA(S). This is the equivalent power to s136 Mental Health Act in England and Wales – or MHA(EW).
- So is the Chief Constable referring only to leaving those of us who were detained under Scottish officers under s293 MHA(S) to remove someone to an Emergency Department – if so, I have certain questions which are unclear from the above article.
- Or is she referring to anyone removed to ED, regardless of whether s293 was invoked? – in which case, I’d have certain other questions and chief amongst them is why use the legal “place of safety” phrase at all if you mean situations which do not involve s293 and the PoS concept?
PLACE OF SAFETY
As with all UK jurisdictions, if a police officer legally detains someone under any law, they then owe that person a duty of care and must discharge it. In the context of someone vulnerable due to a mental health concern, that duty of care will extend to ensuring the person is discharged from detention only in to circumstances where process involved is complete – so that assessment of someone’s mental health is completed by relevant professionals. If you remove someone to an Emergency Department in any UK jurisdiction, that location is only functioning as a “place of safety” if the relevant MHA power has been used and an AMHP / MHO / ASW called to organise that assessment.
Otherwise, the police are merely “assisting someone to hospital” just as an ambulance could, or indeed a taxi or a relative. The “the place of safety” idea is irrelevant to such situations, because the MHA has not been invoked – at all. That said, we know that in some cases it probably should have been … more on that in a moment.
Now, the fact someone has been assisted to attend an ED on a supposedly voluntary basis does not mean it is necessarily acceptable to just ensure they arrive and then leave them there. The situation might still amount to an immediate risk to life or risk of serious harm where human rights obligations are owed, notwithstanding that a person appeared to consent to being helped to the hospital – and all of this before we even begin to discuss the dynamics at play when officers are asking vulnerable people if they would like help to get to ED?
THE TRUE MEANING OF CONSENT
Is that decision subject to capacity assessment so we’re happy the person does understand what they are agreeing to? – are they also agreeing to remaining there until seen? – and even where capacity is not in doubt, was that conversation handled in a way which made the vulnerable person realise they had the option to say “no, thanks officer – I’ll be fine”?
If it didn’t, they weren’t really consenting, were they?! – they either weren’t fully informed about what they agreeing to, or weren’t informed they did not have to agree.
We can see aspects of this in the English case of Charlotte Tetley who died by suicide in 2024. Found on a railway line by British Transport Police she was assisted to ED, her background not fully checked out and the BTP officers left. Shortly afterwards, she left the ED and was reported high-risk missing, with NHS staff twice expressing serious concerns for her welfare amounting to an immediate risk to life. Cheshire Police twice declined to search for her, stating she could not be considered suicidal because she did not vocalise her intention to die(!).
She was later found deceased on a railway line.
Is this one of the situations where s136 MHA should have been invoked but perhaps wasn’t precisely so the officers could argue they had no obligation to stay despite having found Charlotte in a position of imminent death by suicide and with a history of absconding? – it does bear thinking about, doesn’t it?! This case came straight to mind after I read the article, along with that of Anthony Preston in Essex (2020).
WEBLEY
But if s293 MHA(S) had been used, is there an obligation to remain at hospital after arrival?
Well, the Scottish Act is no more explicit on that point than the English-Welsh Act and I’m not aware of any Scottish case law on this topic (and I looked) but we could remind ourselves of the Welbey case from England in 2014.
Officers who left a man in ED, did so only after they had ensured ED were aware of the fact, in agreement with the action, briefed on the background context and given time to get their resources together. After the officers left, Mr Webley existed the ED and fell from height, suffering life-altering injury. In the civil claim which followed, the police were not found liable for negligence because they had undertaken due diligence and only exited after the NHS agreed to take over responsibility for the duty of care owed, having been given all time and information necessary to do it properly. The hospital were found negligence and liable.
So we have a problem here and it was obvious to me as soon as I read the remarks –
- If the Chief encourages / authorises officers to leave someone at ED who has been detained under 293 MHA(S), it strikes me it won’t protect her or the officers involved from liabilities if, having left, there is an untoward outcome like there was for Mr Webley – unless, of course, the ED concerned had agreed to take over having been fully briefed on it all.
- More widely, it’s not obvious that walking away from someone just because they supposedly attended ED on a voluntary basis necessarily changes much – risk and background is risk and background, regardless of whether it’s wrapped up in a legal package under the MHA.
As soon as I read the 1919 article, I had alarm bells ringing in my head. Body-worn video, if used in these situations, might just ending providing ample evidence to the Police Investigation Review Commission (PRIC – the Scottish equivalent of the IOPC) that the decision to leave someone in ED was not taken properly and while the Scottish Police Federation is on social media loudly exclaiming
If you want to “fix” the problem of police resources being expended on long stays in ED, you might first need to understand policing & mental health – something on which this article fails to convince – and you might then need to train your officers properly, which will be difficult if you haven’t understood the problem you’re addressing the first place.
This stuff is pure politics – it’s not engineering.
Awarded the President’s Medal, by
the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
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All opinions expressed are my own – they do not represent the views of any organisation.
(c) Michael Brown, 2026
I am not a police officer.
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
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