POLICE Scotland has been told to review the way its control room staff spark a missing person inquiry after an investigation into the case of a man who jumped from his seventh-floor flat.
Professor John McNeill, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC), also said the national force should examine the actions of some of its officers and staff following the incident in Leith, Edinburgh.
A 39-year-old man, who has a history of psychiatric illness, remains in hospital after being seriously injured when he plunged from the flat on June 12.
A friend had called the Police Scotland area control room for Edinburgh to report his fears after the man left his home unexpectedly. Despite the fact police officers had been in contact with him on several occasions, no missing person report was raised. Instead, the friend's call was recorded as a "concern for person", meaning no police response was necessary.
Later that evening, three police officers were called to Torphin Bank in Edinburgh where the man had been seen behaving strangely. They were not told about previous incidents involving the man so the officers dropped him off outside his block of flats.
He fell from the seventh floor of the building about an hour and a half later.
Mr McNeill said: "It is essential information held in police systems and otherwise available to police staff is accurately recorded and provided to front line officers when attending calls. "
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We will study all the evidence provided by the PIRC and note that a number of recommendations are specified."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article