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Two police officers lied about a woman who had been dead for weeks, a hearing found
Two police officers lied about the state of a woman who was found dead, to speed up the process of sending an ambulance, a misconduct hearing has found.
Sgt Stuart Hunter, who retired before the hearing, and PC Lisa Thomas of South Wales Police were found to have committed gross misconduct in relation to the incident which happened in 2021.
Sgt Hunter was also found to have shown “complete disregard for dignity in death” by ordering a junior officer to perform CPR on the woman, despite believing she had been dead for weeks.
South Wales Police said the actions of the officers were “disgraceful”.
A Welsh Ambulance Service Trust duty control manager complained about the officers’ actions, suggesting that the deployment of emergency resources to the task had diverted them from a patient in cardiac arrest who later died.
But it was found that “no actual harm has been shown to have occurred in relation to potential delays to other ambulance calls to members of the public who required emergency assistance”.
In November 2021, after concerns from a neighbour, PC Thomas and another officer gained entry to a woman’s house in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, and found she had been dead for some time, with the body decomposing.
The officers needed a medical professional to officially declare the woman dead and at 00:16 GMT PC Thomas called the Welsh Ambulance Service.
The case was graded as “non-urgent” as the woman was not breathing or awake.
Sgt Hunter, a more senior ranking officer, came to the house and PC Thomas again rang the ambulance at 01:03 but was told they were “experiencing delays”.
Believing an ambulance “could take up to four hours”, Sgt Hunter then rang a local undertakers and “knowingly provided a false and misleading account” by saying that a paramedic had already declared the woman dead.
Sgt Hunter then ordered PC Thomas to call the ambulance again, and this time the hearing heard she provided “a false and misleading account” during a nine-minute phone call, by implying that the woman was alive or “that there were prospects of saving her life when you knew her to be deceased.”
The panel found the actions of Sgt Hunter and PC Thomas breached the standards of “honesty and integrity”.
During the call, PC Thomas also told the operator that the officer had already started CPR and Sgt Hunter ordered the third officer to start chest compressions on the woman’s body, though she had been dead for about two to three weeks.
The report said this was “a clear breach of the standard of authority, respect and courtesy” in relation to the woman who was “afforded no dignity in death and who PS Hunter caused to be manhandled and probably further damaged as a result of this action”.
At 01:24 a paramedic attended and confirmed the woman was dead.
Officers’ actions were ‘disgraceful’
The panel found the level of harm caused was “medium” but added there was a “foreseeable likelihood of grave harm” resulting from potential delays to other ambulance calls.
Sgt Hunter did not attend the misconduct hearing, held last month, but PC Thomas did, with the panel saying both were of “good character” with no criminal convictions or other misconduct hearings against their names.
For Sgt Hunter, the panel found the level of culpability to be high, stating his behaviour was “intentional and deliberate” and amounted to gross misconduct.
He retired from the force in January 2023 but the panel said he would have been dismissed if he was still a serving officer.
For PC Thomas, the culpability was said to be medium/high and gross misconduct was also proven with the sanction of “dismissal without notice”.
Ch Supt Arabella Rees, head of professional standards, said: “The actions of former Sgt Stuart Hunter and PC Lisa Thomas were disgraceful and as a consequence they have been removed from policing.
“Every day, police officers across south Wales face the most challenging and distressing situations which they handle with courage, compassion and integrity.
“The behaviour of the two officers on this day fell completely short of what is expected of everyone within South Wales Police.”
