Officer conduct examined after two 999 calls concerning the same man – Nottinghamshire Police, November 2025

Home - Our work - Learning - Officer conduct examined after two 999 calls concerning the same man – Nottinghamshire Police, November 2025 Officer conduct examined after two 999 calls concerning the same man – Nottinghamshire Police, November 2025 Published 18 Sep 2026 Investigation In November 2025, Nottinghamshire Police received a 999 call from a delivery driver who reported that a man had jumped into his van and unsuccessfully tried to drive off with it, threatening to kill him.

The call was graded as requiring an immediate response and two officers were sent to the scene. The officers found the man who had threatened the delivery driver and they spoke to him. The man was incoherent at times and described experiencing mental ill health. The officers documented they searched the man and no weapons were found.

A check on the Police National Computer revealed the man had previous police contact for other offences. The officers spoke to a police sergeant and decided the man had not committed a criminal offence. The man did not want to go to hospital, so the officers allowed him to leave. Around an hour later, Nottinghamshire Police received another 999 call reporting an attempted rape.

The same officers attended and identified the suspect as the man involved in the earlier incident. They arrested him on suspicion of attempted rape and he was taken to police custody. The man was later charged for the offence and given a five-year restraining order. We received a conduct referral from the force in November 2025 regarding the two officers who responded to the earlier incident involving the man.

In February 2026, we received a complaint from the delivery driver about the incident. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the police response, the lack of follow up actions, and that he was treated differently because of his race. We decided to independently investigate the conduct of both officers during and following their interaction with the man, including their actions and decisions, and whether they appropriately considered or assessed concerns around the man’s mental health and drug and alcohol use.

We also examined their actions and decisions after contact with the man, and whether the delivery driver was treated differently because of his race. We reviewed legislation, national and local policies, procedures and guidelines. We examined the body worn video footage from one of the officers (the other officer did not turn theirs on), incident logs and training records.

We reviewed their pocket notebook entries and interviewed both officers. The officers answered the questions we put to them during interviews. We took witness statements, including one from the police sergeant who discussed the incident with the officers. We also took a statement from the delivery driver.

This evidence was reviewed alongside the relevant legislation, guidance and policies. We analysed comparison data showing the breakdown of public order incidents investigated by ethnicity. We concluded there was no indication that a person serving with the police committed a criminal offence, but the officers had behaved in a manner to justify disciplinary proceedings.

We found that the officers’ decision not to arrest the man after the first incident was reasonable. By the time the officers arrived, any threatening behaviour by the man had stopped, and there was no ongoing risk to the delivery driver or the public. It was clear from the officer’s body worn video footage that the man was experiencing mental ill health at the time of the incident, and his mental health was assessed while in custody.

We found that one of the officer’s consideration of this was reasonable, as was their view that detention under Section 136 of the Mental Health Act was not appropriate as the man was not in immediate need of care or control in a public place. The officer consulted with their supervisor who agreed with the officer’s rationale.

However, the officers’ assertion that they signposted the man to agencies who may have been able to support him was not recorded in any log. We found that this officer did not keep auditable records of the circumstances of the incident, their decisions or the outcomes, which breached the police standards of professional behaviour for duties and responsibilities.

Our evidence showed that the other officer did not switch on their body worn video camera during the incident. Although the officer highlighted their lack of operational experience and that they were still within their probation period, they had been in policing prior to that as a police community support officer for two years.

They should have been aware of the need to use their camera to capture evidence. While this breached the police standard for duties and responsibilities, given that the officer was aware that the other officer’s body worn video was recording the incident, we found insufficient evidence that they had breached the police standard for honesty and integrity.

We found that the officers’ assumption that the delivery driver would have been contacted as part of the attempted rape enquiry was, despite being wrong, not unreasonable. We recommended that Nottinghamshire Police should contact the delivery driver to explain that, as the result of a misunderstanding about where the responsibility for this action lay, he was not contacted with an outcome as promised by the officers who responded to his call.

We found no evidence that either officer displayed behaviour which was discriminatory on the basis of race or any other characteristic. We found that the officers had a case to answer for misconduct. We shared our report with the force, who agreed. We decided that while the police standards of professional behaviour had been breached, it was not so serious as to justify disciplinary proceedings.

The officers’ performance fell short of the expectations of the public and the police service, but their conduct was not a repeated pattern of behaviour. We recommended that both officers would benefit from the reflective practice review process (RPRP). This process allows officers to learn from and reflect on what could have been done better.

A letter was also given to the call handler in this incident about learning in relation to their actions. We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

We did not identify any organisational learning in this case. IOPC reference 2025/017674 Tags Nottinghamshire Police Mental health Welfare and vulnerable people Sharing Share to Twitter [open in new window] Share to LinkedIn [open in new window] Share to Facebook [open in new window] Share via email [open in new window] Copy to clipboard [open in new window]