Police did their best to help a man who was found dead in his house five days after being left home by a police patrol, a Police Ombudsman investigation has concluded.
The man who was found dead in his home two days before Christmas in 2002. The police asked the Police Ombudsman's Office to investigate when it emerged that police officers were the last people to have contact with the man prior to his death.
The investigation found that police had taken him home on the evening of 18 December after a concerned member of the public called to report that a man was lying in a street.
The officers involved reported that the man had been intoxicated and had been wearing light clothing in temperatures of around -2 centigrade.
One of the officers took him by the arm and led him home as a colleague drove the police patrol car alongside them. She reported that upon reaching his house she helped him find his key before taking him inside, sitting him down on the sofa and getting him a pillow. She told him to be careful when he went to get up and advised him that he would be better staying where he was until he sobered up, whereupon she and her colleague left.
Five days later, on December 23, police received a call from a nearby householder who informed them that she had not seen the man for a number of days, and was concerned about his welfare.
When police went to the man's house in response to this call, they discovered him slumped in a downstairs bathroom, showing no signs of life. One of the officers in attendance on 23 December had also helped him home five days previously and noted that he was wearing the same clothing as he had been on that evening. The Police Ombudsman's Office was informed after the officer stated that she was probably the last person to have had contact with the man while he was alive.
A subsequent post mortem examination established "features consistent with hypothermia and a head injury." The autopsy report recorded that the injury was consistent with a fall in which the back of the head had struck the ground. It had been sustained at least three days prior to death and prevented the man recovering from the fall, eventually leading to hypothermia. There was nothing to suggest that an assault had taken place.
The body also tested negative for alcohol, which suggested that the man had stayed alive for at least ten hours after being taken home by police, allowing his liver time to destroy the alcohol in his system.
Police Ombudsman investigators spoke to a number of people who had seen the officers help the man home on the evening of 18 December. The witnesses recalled that the man appeared to be drunk, two also recalled that he had been wearing light clothing in very cold temperatures.
The Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, concluded: "On the basis of the evidence gathered during this investigation it is clear that the deceased did not die as a result of the actions of police. The officer who left him home was not bound to reasonably foresee that he would have sustained a head injury as a result of falling backwards in the downstairs toilet of his home, which would have led to him not being able to extricate himself from this life-threatening situation, and subsequently led to his death by hypothermia.
"The officer had done her best to support him and see him safe in his own home," added Mrs O'Loan.