PIRC finds litany of police failings following death of elderly woman

The Police Investigations & Review Commissioner (PIRC) has identified numerous failings and made recommendations to police on their handling of a missing person case involving an elderly woman with dementia, who was later found dead.

Janet McKay, 88, had been missing for eight days when her body was found on 24 September 2015 in the area of Rothesay Docks, Clydebank.

The investigation focused on how Police Scotland managed the missing person enquiry after the matter was referred to the PIRC by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

In her report to the COPFS, the commissioner, Kate Frame, found procedural and investigative failings in the Police Scotland enquiry. The report was shared with the Chief Constable at the time in April 2016 to allow him to take immediate action to ensure future missing person enquiries are not subject to the same failings.

Ms Frame said: “This investigation highlighted a number of investigative and procedural failings by Police Scotland in conducting a missing person enquiry for a vulnerable, elderly woman who suffered from dementia.”

In her report, the commissioner identified several failures in how the missing person enquiry was conducted.

They included procedural failings that showed many of the police officers involved in the enquiry had not read or were not fully aware of guidance contained in Police Scotland’s Missing Person Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), resulting in them not following standard procedures.

The commissioner also found that although Police Scotland conducted a timely search for Mrs McKay, officers failed to obtain initial statements from key witnesses and failed to accurately record some of the initial information gathered.

It was also found that some items of evidence taken by officers were not properly processed or recorded.

Other procedural failings were identified by the commissioner in the management of the investigation that she recommended Police Scotland should resolve without delay.

In her report, the commissioner also identified a number of investigative failings. She found that officers failed to take a statement from a key witness, the elderly woman’s carer, who was known to have visited Mrs McKay’s home on the day she went missing and who would have been able to describe what she had been wearing.

The commissioner also discovered that on the following day, police supervisors failed to act promptly, in response to a reported sighting of Mrs McKay on the day she had gone missing.

The commissioner also found that three days into the enquiry, there was another delay when a witness told Police Scotland he had seen Mrs McKay boarding a bus to Clydebank near to her home. Despite holding information on its Vulnerable Persons Database (VPD) about Ms McKay’s previous use of buses and specifically her use of a bus to Clydebank, police did not follow up this information until six days after she went missing, on 22 September 2015.

Finally, the commissioner found that some police supervisors failed to check that lines of enquiry had been properly completed, including a failure to obtain relevant CCTV footage showing Ms McKay on board the bus to Clydebank on the day she went missing.