An assistant coroner has expressed concern over the handling of a report of a missing man whose body was found two months later. Lee Bowman died after getting trapped between two fence panels, and despite the fact it could not be determined how he died, police’s assumptions based on his alcohol addiction were seen as problematic. Moreover, they were accused of “insufficient scrutiny” regarding the information provided by Mr. Bowman’s family about his state of mind and whereabouts. The coroner leading the inquest has written to the College of Policing urging it to take action following the case.
Although Mr. Bowman was from Ollerton and was 44 years old when he died in 2021, his father did not report him missing until five days after the family last saw him. Nottinghamshire Police ended the search for him, believing it to be “a deliberate absence.” The case was later transferred to South Yorkshire Police, which closed the investigation on the basis of a false sighting. The investigation was eventually reopened by South Yorkshire Police when Mr. Bowman’s family contacted police once again, and it was regraded as high risk after the sightings of him were confirmed to be false news.
Mr. Bowman’s eldest daughter, Corrina Bowman, believes that the coroner’s concerns echo the worries that she expressed when her father first disappeared, and that the police did not listen to her nor her family. Rob Griffin, Nottinghamshire Police’s Assistant Chief Constable, admitted that there were areas of the investigation that need to be improved but that the police have already implemented changes in response to the report. The College of Policing, which is a professional organisation for all those involved in policing in England and Wales, has a legal obligation to react to the coroner’s report by 4 January.
The police have made “significant assumptions” about Mr. Bowman’s location based on his addiction. They failed to verify the accuracy of sightings of Mr. Bowman and closed down the investigation based on a false sighting by a PCSO. Consequently, the College of Policing has been urged by the coroner to address the assumption-based practice of Nottinghamshire police. She has also advised the police to improve the process of verifying false sightings in order to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future
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