On the 1st October this year, the Home Office released its latest figures about the police use of section 136 Mental Health Act 1983 and I’m trying hard to not exaggerate when I was it was really quite breath-taking to read it. It was incredible, unbelievable and confusing all at once, and for one reason in particular which I will come to for it forms the bulk of the post.
First, some of the general highlights about what this data is saying –
- Use of the power across England and Wales has risen by 2.1% from 31,779 to 32,456.
- This is despite the fact Cumbria have been unable to submit data, so the number should really be higher, by about 200-300 if previous years are anything to go by.
- Use of Emergency Departments has risen again, to the point where we now have over 50% of all s136 detentions leading to ED removal as a first location.
- 16,298 people to ED, despite the fact most of them do not need the kind of care ED can provide – RCEM must be jumping up and down with frustration.
- Use of police custody as a Place of Safety has more than doubled since last year’s figures.
- We previously had 354 detentions in custody, 118 (33%) of those in just one force area – we now have 770 detentions in custody, 545 (70%) of them in just one area – the same one.
- Ambulances were used to convey those detained under s136 less than half the time – 15,177 (47%). Over 1,000 people were already at a Place of Safety when detained, so of those who required conveyance, it still amounted to just 49% of occasions an ambulance was used.
- Of the occasions where ambulance did not transport, over 5,000 of that was ambulance not available, c3,500 was ambulance not requested, c4,000 was a police or police/ambulance risk assessment that ambulance not be used and +1,000 unrecorded reasons.
WEST MIDLANDS POLICE
It was incredible, unbelievable and confusing all at once – but it was not surprising, not really.
In the drafts section of this website, there are two unpublished blogs which I wrote whilst still serving which I wasn’t inclined to publish. It would have been a fairly quick route to yet another professional standards investigation but both of them are relevant to what we’re seeing in this data and there are a few things to say about it so bear with me.
By “unbelievable”, above, I mean that some of the data is unlikely to reflect reality – I struggle to believe it based on experience, history and previous data so we should remember, even data from a Home Office ‘official’ dataset should still be subject to scrutiny and some scepticism for accuracy and reliability.
Let me explain one example –
- In 2025/6, the latest data, West Midlands Police claim to have used a police station as a Place of Safety 545 times – this is +70% of the national total, because all other forces taken together did this 225 times.
- When forces submit their data on this point – police stations as a Place of Safety – they have to specify why custody was used and there are four options to choose from –
-
- Section 136 used OUTSIDE custody, conveyed there because conditions for use of a police station were met.
- Section used OUTSIDE custody, conveyed there despite conditions for use of a police station NOT being met.
- Section 136 used IN custody, remaining there because conditions for use of a police station were met.
- Section used IN custody, remaining there despite conditions for use of a police station NOT being met.
- All 545 detentions in the West Midlands in these latest data were condition-1 detentions: an inspector authorised use of a police station because the conditions in the 2017 Place of Safet Regulations were met.
- Last year, WMP used custody 118 times (33% of that year’s total use of custody) but all of them condition-3 detentions: people already in police custody, presumably under arrest for an alleged offence, were kept there because an inspector authorised it, as per the 2017 Regs.
SO WHAT DOES THAT ALL MEAN
You probably need to ask yourself some questions:
- All things being what we would expect, is it reasonable to think one police force – even a large one – should account for +70% of all uses of a police station?
- What explains why one force is at dramatic odds with all the other areas: 42 forces authorised the use of police stations 225 times, compared to 545 authorisations in just one force?
- Do we think it’s credible for WMP to claim they’ve used this power 545 times this year outside the police station where the criteria for removal custody was met, when they didn’t do that even once last year (2024/5)? – or the year before that (2023/4)?!
- In those previous years, WMP recorded all of their uses of police stations as a Place of Safety against condition 3, above – detaining people who are already in custody (presumably for an alleged offence) and then keeping them there.
But they didn’t do that even once this year … what on EARTH is going on?!
DOING THE DETAIL
I said to someone earlier, I’d love to spend a day with access to 545 custody records – it seems likely somebody’s not doing detail otherwise they’d have been asking why they accounted for 33% of police station use last year – and for very different reasons to this year.
Here’s my best guess, based on general experience and of experience in that force, including years working as a “PACE” inspector, overseeing custody:
- There is little chance they had have 545 situations in a year where the grounds for the use of custody are met – the fact all other forces counted together struggle to do that even 250 times shows this; and yet one force is knocking out more than double that amount … it suggests an obvious anomaly.
- They previously directed custody sergeants to make sure that any arrested suspect deemed by Liaison and Diversion to need a Mental Health Act assessment to be further detained as well under s136 MHA, a completely unnecessary and legally dubious practice for various reasons.
- We also have to remember this s136 issue is just one aspect of wider concerns about WMP practice in custody. His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons took the unprecedented step this summer of writing an open letter to three Secretaries of State about a so-called “red route” in police custody which deliberately avoids Mental Health Act assessment for those who may need it, instead prosecuting and remanding them, leaving prison staff to cope with clinically complex needs requiring hospital care.
- I submitted a Freedom of Information Act application to WMP after that and now have a copy of their “red route” custody progress chart. I have one or two hundred questions about it, all for another day.
- Having been involved in the national work which brought in the 2017 amendments and in making recommendation about the Regulations governing use of custody, I can tell you they were written in such a way as to make it almost impossible to justify removing someone to custody.
- I wrote at the time about why I would literally never be prepared to authorise the use of custody – if the criteria were considered properly, it would mean you’re authorising the use of police stations for those most at risk by being taken there.
- For an inspector to authorise the use of a police station is a dangerous gamble involving the crossing of fingers; to authorise detention in custody (which is a separate legal decision by a sergeant) is just as precarious.
- It’s almost literally the story of all the high-profile deaths in police custody you’ve ever heard of: including examples in the West Midlands area. Historic deaths illustrate why the UK has tried to make custody genuinely exceptional.
WHAT’S THE OBJECTIVE HERE?
And I don’t mind sharing, massive reduction in the use of custody was precisely what the Home Office had in mind: that the criteria effectively ban the use of custody by the back door, because the NHS were not ready for a total ban, so they pushed it as far as they could via these difficult-to-meet Regulations. But when these came in, West Midlands Police was even then in a very strong position: here is the first edition of Home Office data on s136 from 2016/7 and you’ll notice in tab MHA_05a that West Midlands Police used s136 1,828 and precisely ZERO went to custody – literally none, for any reason.
What’s gone on in those years that they’re now jailing more than half the number of people that were being taken to custody when custody was the ONLY option available in that force area, prior t0 2009/10?
And at the risk of making an obvious point: the police (esp West Midlands Police) will need to get this sorted out if they want the Government to press “go” on the commencement order for the Mental Health Act 2025 amendment which removes police stations as a Place of Safety option in all circumstances.
FINAL MESSAGE
To any / all the custody sergeants who may read this – especially those in the West Midlands! – an inspector’s authority to use a police station does NOT override your statutory duty around ensuring a person is fit to be detained or the considerations in PACE Code C about vulnerable people, medical attention and / or calling an ambulance.
Given the reasons, linked above, why I would never authorise it, I’d encourage you to think more deeply about how safe and appropriate it is to have someone in custody in such distress as to need such constant observations or restraint – remembering all the medical stuff in the ABD guidance elsewhere on this website. and especially bearing in mind the need for clinical observations for hours of someone who has experienced a significant restraint.
This is the stuff of Preventing Future Death reports (especially see Leon Briggs and Andrew McCleary, both involving Bedfordshire Police and the same Senior Coroner who expressed her own frustration at lessons not learned and at the force for making a failed attempt to judicially review the inquest outcome) – if you think the minds driving this stuff are getting it right, I have a bridge to sell you.
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, 2026
I am not a police officer.
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