You don’t have to wait 24-hours to report somebody missing

Helping to protect some of the most vulnerable of people across our force area, our locate team, headed up by Chief Inspector Owen Stafford, work extremely hard to reunite missing people with their loved ones no matter the circumstances in which they have been reported missing.

It may be a surprise to hear that, unlike in films, you do not in fact have to wait 24-hours to report someone you’re concerned about missing. If your loved one hasn’t returned home, you can contact us to talk through your concerns so we can assess what we can do to help find them.

Heading up the forces locate team Chief Inspector Owen Stafford said: “When a member of the public calls us to raise concerns, one of the first people they will speak to will be one of our highly trained Contact Officers.

“In the first instance the Contact Officer will look to get as much information about the missing person, including when they were last seen, what their lifestyle is like, and what a typical day in their life may look like. We also ask for a physical description alongside what they were last seen wearing.

“The Force Control Room supervision will then assess the missing person’s vulnerabilities so we can understand what work we need to start undertaking to try and locate them safe and well”.

Once the Force Control Room have made an assessment of the information that has been provide, our Locate team will then look to assess the grading of the missing person whether that be low, medium or high risk and as well as what lines of enquiry can be done as soon as possible.

Hear more from Chief Inspector Stafford.