A police officer has been disciplined for failing to deal properly with a missing person report following an incident in November 2010.
A Police Ombudsman investigation established that the officer had failed to record details of a person reported missing by his concerned sister.
After hearing a report that a body had been found, the woman (Woman A) contacted police to report that her brother had failed to turn up for work, had been suffering from depression and had previously attempted to take his own life.
Despite this information, the Officer she spoke to (Officer 1) failed to create a record of the missing person report, and failed to refer the matter to his supervisor or to the PSNI's Criminal Investigation Department.
When interviewed by Police Ombudsman investigators, Woman A said Officer 1 had been generally unhelpful and vague when she spoke to him on the phone. She added that when she subsequently visited the police station, he had also led her to believe that the deceased was not her brother.
The deceased's identity had not been known at that stage, but was confirmed as Woman A's brother the following day, after which she was contacted by police and informed of his death.
When interviewed by Police Ombudsman investigators, Officer A said he had told Woman A that to the best of his knowledge the deceased was not her brother. He said he based this assessment on the fact that he had been informed by a colleague that the deceased was likely to be a police officer or a prison officer owing to the nature of the weapon used.
Officer A kept no note of his contact with Woman A when she telephoned police, nor when she called at the police station. He said he did not consider that she was making a report of a missing person and as such did not feel the need to complete a missing persons report.
He added that he had risk assessed the situation and considered it low risk.
The Police Ombudsman, Al Hutchinson, noted guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers that "anyone whose whereabouts is unknown, whatever the circumstances of disappearance...will be considered missing until located and their well-being or otherwise established."
He also noted that PSNI guidelines require officers to record details of all reports of missing persons, or in cases of doubt, to contact senior officers.
"Officer A failed to take any of these steps," said Mr Hutchinson, who also noted that the officer had missed a number of opportunities to initiate an investigation on the basis of the information he had been given.
"Had he been proactive there is every possibility that the deceased would have been identified much earlier and, as a consequence, his family would have been spared the additional anguish caused by his poor response."
Please note: the above report has recorded under an incident date of 1 November 2010, but the exact date has not been disclosed to protect identities.