A report has found multiple police failings over the death of a Hamilton man whose body was found three days after he escaped from a mental health facility last year.
Nicky Stevens, 21, was under a compulsory care order at the Henry Bennett Centre. He was admitted on February 19, 2015, and went missing on March 9. His body was found in the Waikato River on March 12 by a member of the public.
His family had repeatedly asked for his unescorted and unsupervised smoko breaks to be scrapped, after he tried to take his own life and threatened to try again.
"There were a number of missed opportunities on March 9 and 10, 2015, for police to reassess the risk posed to Nicholas Stevens and realise that further action was required," says Independent Police Conduct Authority chair Sir David Carruthers.
"The lack of action and contact from police caused Nicholas Stevens' family great distress at a very difficult time."
Mr Stevens' family complained to the IPCA, alleging:
The clothes police said Mr Stevens was wearing were from a five-year-old missing persons report that "self-populated" the new alert. He was actually wearing a black hoodie, green top, black trousers and bare feet. Mr Stevens is also not Maori.
The police dispatcher who took the initial call from the Henry Bennett Centre, rather than send an officer to investigate right away "did not consider that it was necessary to dispatch anyone", nor did they alert a police communications supervisor.
The dispatcher also didn't tell anyone Mr Stevens was a mental health patient who had recently tried to commit suicide.
"Nicky's death was preventable, and if the police had done their job, he may still well be alive today," says Mr Stevens' mother Jane Stevens.
The IPCA report found policy and good practice wasn't followed, police's handling of Mr Stevens' disappearance was inadequate and the officer dealing with the case fell well short of usual standards.
Five failings in particular were noted:
"We were very frustrated, upset and angry at the time, but we still thought things were happening behind the scenes -- they just weren't telling us. We found not only were they not telling us, they weren't doing anything," says Mr Stevens' father Dave Macpherson.
"The first time we actually met a police person… was when we were taken to visit him in the morgue. That's terrible, and we still feel terrible about it."
Police acknowledged the IPCA's report, saying their handling of the case fell "well below our standards".
"Over time police has developed good systems and operating processes for missing persons, but I fully acknowledge that on this occasion key staff did not apply good judgement," says Waikato Police district commander Bruce Bird.
Since Mr Stevens' death, he says Waikato police have put more senior staff in charge of missing person operations and extended the hours of coverage provided. About 540 recruits have also completed mental health training over the past 18 months.
"Police would again like to apologise to Mr Stevens' family, who we let down in our handling of this incident," says Supt Bird.
"We have learnt valuable lessons from this tragic death."
IPCA recommendations for police include:
The IPCA noted its support for police efforts to develop a national training package on mental health and ensure alerts for people missing from mental health providers are in place "at the earliest possible time".
The Stevens believe police attitudes towards mental illness need to change, saying if their son was a toddler or an elderly person -- rather than an escaped mental health patient -- the police's response may have been very different.
Newshub.
