Police failed to suitably monitor woman who self-harmed twice in custody, investigation finds
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
A woman who self-harmed while being held in police custody lay on the floor unnoticed for five minutes.
An Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigation has ruled police made a number of failings which led to a woman self-harming on two occasions while in custody.
IPCA investigated the two self-harm incidents involving the same female prisoner at the Counties Manukau Police District Custody Unit (DCU) in October and November 2017.
On 24 October 2017, police arrested the woman for breaching her bail conditions.
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Police left the woman unattended in a holding cell, and she proceeded to self-harm herself.
The woman fell to the floor, where she remained still and unnoticed by staff for over five minutes, IPCA said.
When staff found the woman she was breathing but unresponsive and they placed her in the recovery position.
After re-entering the cell, police called an ambulance.
The woman was later sedated and placed in intensive care. She was discharged from hospital two days later.
On 18 November 2017, police again arrested the woman and took her to the DCU.
The woman was placed in a cell with another female prisoner, who activated the cell call button 30 minutes later after noticing the woman did not appear to be breathing.
Police staff took several minutes to respond as they did not notice the call alert.
The woman was transported to hospital and later discharged by medical and psychiatric staff into the care of Corrections staff.
IPCA chair, Judge Colin Doherty, said the investigation determined there were a number of failings by police staff during these incidents.
This related to the adequacy of communication between police staff, the quality and accuracy of their risk evaluations, and the levels of monitoring that the woman was subject to.
'It is evident that in both instances police did not sufficiently fulfill their duty of care to her,' he said.
IPCA ruled that police failed to appropriately receive, evaluate, and monitor the woman while she was in custody.
In a statement released on Tuesday, District Commander for Counties Manukau Jill Rogers said police accepted the report's findings.
'In these two instances we clearly did not provide the duty of care that is expected when monitoring people being held in our custody unit, particularly those individuals identified as being at-risk.
'This is obviously disappointing and we acknowledge that there were several shortcomings identified by the police staff involved in these two incidents,' Rogers said.
Rogers said police had also investigated the matter and identified areas where they could improve their practises.
'We have notified the IPCA that we are subsequently in the process of implementing a plan to improve the way staff evaluate and monitor individuals held in our custody unit in order to prevent this from happening again.'
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Lifeline (open 24/7) - 0800 543 354
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