// Police missed a desperate, screaming 999 call from a teenage girl while she and her family where being murdered in their home, a report revealed yesterday.
'Force procedure dictates that screaming on an abandoned 999 call should elicit an immediate police response.
'Had police used more detailed checks and a mapping system available to them, the need for a subscriber check would have been established; the correct address in Pioneer Close would have been identified and in all likelihood attended by officers within minutes.
But their bodies weren't discovered until two days later. //
An IPCC report found
// - The location from which the 999 call was made was incorrectly identified and disseminated by a police call handler, which led to the police focusing on the wrong address
- Insufficient checks were carried out to determine the correct address of the caller
- The call should have been graded as requiring an ‘immediate’ rather than a ‘priority’ police response
- The call was prematurely closed by a force control room supervisor without sufficient consideration or effort given to establish the welfare of the caller. //
So what happens next? - Nothing.
The IPCC report concludes:
// the range of measures which Northamptonshire Police have already implemented means that no further changes are required. //
http://www.dailymail....d-Chinese-family.html
Somehow, I find the, 'ah well, we've learned our lesson' conclusion a bit inadequate. If I knew this family, I would feel badly let down.