Deaths in Police Custody

Lord Blair of Boughton Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I thank the noble Lord for his points about openness and honesty with the public. Quite often, the heartache of bereaved families is made worse by a feeling that perhaps people have not been open and honest with them. A theme runs through the Government’s response—and, indeed, through Dame Elish’s report itself—which talks about transparency in the whole process. Therefore I totally agree, as do the Government, with the noble Lord’s point.

The noble Lord also talked about police services as the agency of last resort. If I learned anything in local government, it was about the multiagency approach of services working together. Whether in the custody arena or in child protection, when agencies work together and place people appropriately, that starts to end this system of people literally being dumped in the first place that people think of. That particularly applies to people with mental health problems, which is why I was so keen all those years ago to see places of safety established, and I am very pleased now to see that wherever possible, no child or adult with a mental health problem will be placed in police custody.

[Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)]

First, this is a welcome report. Secondly, however, I wonder whether the Minister will agree with me that the weakest part of its recommendations is about the largest number of deaths, which is the rising number of deaths after people are released from police custody. The numbers are between 60 and 70 a year for the last three years of people committing suicide at the end of police custody. A lot of this will of course be based on more people being arrested for offences involving child indecency. The report notes rather drily that this is a “holistic” issue and not just a matter for the police. That is absolutely right, but there are no proper recommendations about what will be done about that level of deaths, which far exceeds any of the other statistics in the report.

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble Lord makes a fair point about people who die post-police custody, which can occur because of a number of different factors. If there is a death after custody, that will still be looked into. I will have to write to him about the specifics.