IM implicated in bodged suicide rescue

A MAN HUNG HIMSELF while the emergency services bungled a rescue attempt that involved sending 'urgent' instant messages about his plight over a messaging system that didn't work.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said that "failings in the force software and internal processes" had delayed the emergency response while Stephen Reilly, a 38-year-old man from Towcester, Northamptonshire, had hung himself on 27 June 2007.

The IPCC report, which has not been published, said that the Vantage control room software used by Northamptonshire Police had an instant messaging facility that "had not worked" since the software was upgraded in late 2006. Even if it had worked, the instant messaging (called "unsolicited messaging" by the police) was inadequate and should not have been used to send emergency messages.

Police operators in the Customer Contact Centre (CCC), a call centre which handles all police calls, had relied on the software to send emergency messages about Mr Reilly's plight to the Force Control Centre (FCC), which co-ordinates officers on the ground. Even if the instant messaging facility had been working, it would still have been inappropriate in an emergency, said the IPCC: messages only stayed on the recipients screen for 10 seconds, there was no acknowledgement of receipt and no audit trail.

"Unsolicited messages are an inappropriate means of communicating critical or urgent information from the CCC to the FCR," said the report.

The month after Mr Reilly's death, Northamptonshire fixed their messaging software and implemented a rule that it should not be used in an emergency.

The IPCC said in a statement about the unpublished report last week: "Following this investigation, two members of police staff received words of advice for failures to comply with guidance on the grading and monitoring of incidents.

"A third received words of advice for failing to provide the Reilly family with accurate information following Mr Reilly's death," it added.

Stratus Technologies, which owned the Vantage software, sold the system to Prosim, a UK firm in October this year, said Graham Roberts, Prosim business development manager. He refused to comment further. Stratus was unavailable for comment.

The IPCC was not able to confirm how many other police forces were using Vantage system and what steps were being taken to ensure they were not using the instant messaging facility to conduct emergency operations.

Kafka the clown does emergency services
Fruitless techockcracy was to blame for the delay in the emergency services reaching Mr Reilly in time. At 00:33 a friend of Mr Reilly called to say she feared he was going to take his life. He was on the telephone with her. An ambulance was dispatched within two minutes. Within five minutes the police had rated the incident an "Emergency (Grade 1)". One minute later, at 00:39, the ambulance crew stopped near the scene. They waited for the police to arrive.

At 00:40 The police phoned Mr Reilly and got no answer. At 00:41, while the police FCC were asking the Ambulance Service HQ why a suicide had been classed as an Emergency (Grade 1), the ambulance HQ were asking the police when they were going to arrive. Six minutes later, the police FCC called the Ambulance HQ to say they wouldn't be attending the scene after all. They had downgraded the incident to Resolution Without Deployment (Grade 4). The ambulance crew arrived at the scene seven minutes later, at 00:54.

Two minutes later, 33 minutes after the original emergency call, the ambulance crew told the police that there was a light on but no sign of movement or answer at Mr Reilly's home: they registered a "fear for welfare". The police call centre told the FCC this development by an instant message that was never received, over a system that didn't work anyway.

The ambulance crew spent the next 20 minutes trying to contact Mr Reilly. At 01:12 they called the police again to request the incident be upgraded again to a Priority (Grade 2) and for police to come. The police call centre forwarded the information to the FCC again by instant message. It was never received.

At 01:38, over an hour after the original emergency call, the ambulance crew managed to break their way partly into Mr Reilly's home. They called the police again. The information was passed to the FCC by an impotent instant message again. Fortunately, the police were already on their way. Unfortunately, they were too late. Mr Reilly was found dead by the ambulance crew "moments before" the police arrived at 01:44. µ