The Merseyside Police response

The Merseyside Police response

¶118. The first 999 call to Merseyside Police was the call by Ms Lucas. Allowing for the time it took to be routed to Merseyside Police Force Control Room, it was received at 11:47:08.¹⁹⁵¹⁹⁵ MERP001610/3; MERP000481 – Disclosed but not published due to sensitive content. The report was that there was a boy who had stabbed “loads of kids” and that there were numerous casualties. It was graded as an emergency call and transferred to a supervisor in the Force Control Room. The Force Control Room supervisor determined that Southport Police Station, around five minutes from the scene, should be set as a Rendezvous Point (RVP) given the report of bladed weapons. The log was referred promptly to Chief Inspector Andrew Hughes who was one of the two on-duty Force Incident Managers. In the meantime, multiple police resources began to be deployed to the incident, initially to the RVP, including the officers whose actions I have set out above.¹⁹⁶¹⁹⁶ MERP000469/2.

¶119. Once he had received the log at 11:49, CI Hughes directed at 11:51 that armed officers were to make their way to the scene, but that given the immediate duty to protect life while armed officers were en route, unarmed patrols were to be deployed “to approach with caution”. They were directed to “assess the situation……if safe deal……………………………….. if officers believe that they cannot safely deal with this incident then they should take appropriate action to minimise the risk to the public and maximise their own safety”.¹⁹⁷¹⁹⁷ MERP000469/3-4.

¶120. Merseyside Police’s Call Handling Policy states that emergency calls should be attended within 10 minutes.¹⁹⁸¹⁹⁸ MERP007530/11. CI Hughes clarified that this meant 10 minutes from the call being received by the Force Control Room.¹⁹⁹¹⁹⁹ T/S: 12/13/14-23. However, calls involving firearms or a bladed weapon should be referred to a Force Incident Manager “for consideration regarding the nature of a police response”. That may mean that the 10-minute attendance time cannot be met, because it may take longer for suitably armed or equipped officers to attend: “[w]hilst such incidents require an emergency response, it may not be possible to achieve an emergency response time”.

¶121. CI Hughes’ decision that unarmed officers were to approach with caution, reflected learning from the Manchester Arena Inquiry which had been briefed extensively to Force Incident Managers. However, CI Hughes was unsure whether it was recorded in Merseyside Police training and stated that it was not part of the call room response policy.²⁰⁰²⁰⁰ T/S: 12/15/10-16/1. As CI Hughes understood it, the learning involved taking on a calculated degree of risk in recognition of the immediate need to protect the public from an obvious risk to life. This included the fact that, in some situations, it may be appropriate, even when there is, for example, a bladed weapon threat, to deploy unarmed officers forward with caution.²⁰¹²⁰¹ T/S: 12/15/4-9. As set out below, that decision meant that AR was confronted and arrested significantly sooner than he would have been if the direction had been to wait for armed officers, in circumstances where Mrs Liddle, Child X, and the staff of Calculus Legal Costs remained alive and inside the Hart Space building, and AR could therefore have caused yet further harm.

¶122. Less significantly, but still importantly, CI Hughes’ decision meant that the first police officers arrived on scene slightly inside the 10-minute response time based on when Ms Lucas’ 999 call was received by the Force Control Room, even though this was a bladed article call that had to be referred to the Force Incident Manager. The call was received at 11:47:08, and PS Gillespie arrived on scene at 11:56:53.

¶123. CI Hughes’ decision was undoubtedly the right one. It was fortunate that CI Hughes had received the briefing and recalled and applied it. CI Hughes suggested that the matters included in the Manchester Arena Inquiry learning and briefing were not reflected in formal policy or guidance. I return to this in the recommendations at the end of this chapter.

¶124. CI Hughes’ direction overrode the initial instruction to unarmed officers to attend the RVP set as Southport Police Station: unarmed officers were now directed to attend the scene directly (while exercising caution). The designation of an RVP was, though, conveyed to North West Ambulance Service at 11:55, in a call that a police call handler made to a North West Ambulance Service call handler.²⁰²²⁰² MERP001395 – Disclosed but not published due to sensitive content. The call transcript suggests a level of confusion with the police call handler saying “we’re at scene now at the RVP point I think its showing us on scene” and the ambulance call handler later saying “I’ve put the note on for the RVP … we should be there any moment”. The discussion led to a marker for the RVP being placed on a North West Ambulance Service log. The marker remained in place until 12:03, although North West Ambulance Service dispatchers did not act upon the marker by dispatching resources to the RVP during this period. By the time the marker was noted by the dispatcher, North West Ambulance Service resources were already at the scene.²⁰³²⁰³ MERP000738/17-19; Witness Statement of Mr Ainsworth NWAS001083/§36.6. Separately, North West Ambulance Service had given an instruction to “stand off” to two crews which I address further below. The North West Ambulance Service concept of standing off required its resources to deploy to the scene but stop a safe distance from the final destination in the interests of safety.

¶125. I conclude that the passage of information from the police to North West Ambulance Service about the RVP therefore made no meaningful difference. However, it is a matter of concern that the understanding and language used by two emergency services is so open to confusion. The concept of an RVP under the Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles is a carefully selected and managed location to control access to a scene.²⁰⁴²⁰⁴ The College of Policing Authorised Professional Practice on Civil Contingencies defines an RVP as a location to which all police and emergency service personnel attending an incident should be directed to ensure that the scene does not become inundated with resources and so that personnel can be deployed to the scene in an orderly fashion: Witness Statement of Mr Hughes MERP007548/§23. The Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles defines an RVP as a “point to which all resources arriving at the outer cordon are directed for logging, briefing, equipment issue and deployment”: Closing Statement on behalf of Merseyside Police MERP008361/13/§40.Show full note This is different to the sometimes-necessary early identification of a site while a scene is secured. CI Hughes also used the term RVP for the latter: a location in an initial phase of a response which is used to keep unarmed staff away from a location that might not be safe for them to attend.²⁰⁵²⁰⁵ T/S: 12/19/1-3. CI Hughes acknowledged that Merseyside Police “don’t use the term ‘standing off’, we only use the term ‘RVP’”, and that he – an experienced Force Incident Manager – was not familiar with the distinction North West Ambulance Service draws between the two.²⁰⁶²⁰⁶ T/S: 12/19/13-20/13. He also accepted that the different meanings ascribed to RVP by Merseyside Police could mean there was potential for miscommunication.²⁰⁷²⁰⁷ T/S: 12/36/10-37/19. For example, if North West Ambulance Service dispatchers had acted upon the marker and deployed resources to the RVP, instead of standing off, then they would have diverted resources away from the scene and instead to Southport Police Station: about five minutes drive from Hart Street.²⁰⁸²⁰⁸ I accept that the dispatchers were unlikely to do so in these circumstances because, firstly, it appears that the North West Ambulance Service were under a misconception that the police were already on scene by 11:53 and, secondly, North West Ambulance Service resources were themselves on scene by 11:57 (see below). However, it may have been these fortuitous timings alone that meant that the marker was not acted upon.Show full note

¶126. In this case, the earliest point where information was passed by police to North West Ambulance Service that the scene was safe to attend was at 12:06, via the Emergency Services Interoperability Control Channel (known as ESICTRL), when an ETHANE message was passed in an attempt to conform to Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles.²⁰⁹²⁰⁹ ETHANE is a mnemonic which stands for Exact Location, Type of incident, Hazards, Access, Number of casualties, Emergency Services. Major incident is added at the start (hence M/ETHANE) where appropriate. The M/ETHANE model is an established reporting framework which provides a common structure for responders and their control rooms to share incident information. That included information that police and ambulance had already moved forwards from the RVP (still set as Southport Police Station) and concluded, “All agencies please go”. As CI Hughes accepted, this did not amount to a clear statement that the attacker had been detained or that the scene was now safe to approach, but given both agencies already had resources at the scene, I accept that this was what was intended and would have been understood as such.²¹⁰²¹⁰ T/S: 12/40/5-41/1.

¶127. I have set out above the actions of the first police responders on scene. It was 11:59 when the fact that a male was detained in possession of a knife was recorded on the police log. By that point, ambulance resources were already arriving outside the Hart Space. Any delay in conveying information to North West Ambulance Service did not therefore make any difference to how quickly treatment could be delivered.

¶128. I make all allowances for the confusion and speed of the early stages of a complex no-notice major incident such as this, with information coming in extraordinarily rapidly and from a range of sources. I also recognise that it is not the role of the police, responding to such an incident, to take operational decisions for other emergency services such as whether or not to ‘stand off’ from an incident. I do, however, find it surprising that the Force Control Room did not appear to regard one of its crucial tasks in this situation as being to ensure that the ambulance service knew whether it was safe for them to deploy all resources to the scene or at least that the ambulance service had all available information to make such an assessment. Information about whether it is safe for other emergency services to attend the incident should be passed at the very earliest opportunity, including, at the very least, any known information which allows other emergency services to assess the safety of forward deployment. This is ‘safety/time critical’ information which the ESICTRL Standard Operating Procedure recognises should be passed ‘without delay’.²¹¹²¹¹ NWAS000016/11. CI Hughes agreed that this would be beneficial, and that clearer or more standardised communication between emergency services would be advantageous.²¹²²¹² T/S: 12/41/15-42/6. The message that unarmed officers were present and had detained a suspect, which indicated a relatively low degree of risk to other emergency services attenders, could in this case have been passed sooner (though only by a very small number of minutes) and more clearly, even before a M/ETHANE message could be relayed. In other cases, that could make a material difference. I set out my recommendations in this regard at the end of this chapter.

¶129. CI Hughes also had to consider whether or not to declare Operation Plato, the response to a marauding terrorist attack. He chose not to do so, on the basis that the information available to him appeared to him to suggest a level of risk that could be managed by Merseyside Police’s own resources, in particular its armed officers. That cannot have been an easy decision to make, on imperfect information and under extreme pressure of time. Nonetheless, CI Hughes made the correct decision. Initiating Operation Plato would have had the effect of reducing the level of threat that emergency responders were exposed to, but also of delaying treatment and resources going to the scene as specialist resources were stood up to attend.²¹³²¹³ T/S: 12/31/13-35/1.

¶130. At 12:09, Inspector Philip Cowin arrived on the scene.²¹⁴²¹⁴ MERP000268. He was the area response inspector. He had made his way from around 14 miles away, self-deploying at 11:52. En route, he had declared a ‘critical incident’ at 12:05, a decision which cues certain resources and protocols within Merseyside Police, but which is distinct from a major incident declaration. On arrival, he took on the role of Bronze Commander. This was approximately four minutes after the first responders had extracted Mrs Liddle, Child X and Mr Hayes from the Hart Space. The time it took Merseyside Police to establish an appropriate command structure on the ground was in my view entirely reasonable.²¹⁵²¹⁵ T/S: 12/51/19-52/3.

¶131. At 12:14, CI Hughes declared a major incident for Merseyside Police. He accepted that this could have been declared sooner: his attention had been drawn away from the log and the general radio channel in order to brief the armed officers.²¹⁶²¹⁶ T/S: 12/56/2-18. Insp Cowin, on the basis of information he received over the radio, had felt able to declare a critical incident at 12:05, and I consider that a major incident could have been declared at this point in time. That would have enabled the initial ETHANE message which began to be sent at 12:06 to be sent as a M/ETHANE message (the ‘M’ indicates whether a major incident has been declared or not). CI Hughes was clear that the level of police resources deployed to the scene from the outset was consistent with a major incident in any event. He considered that earlier declaration by the police of a major incident would not have made a difference in terms of speed of deployment.²¹⁷²¹⁷ T/S: 12/57/11-58/16. I accept that evidence. Given that the delay was no more than nine minutes, I also do not consider that this made any difference as regards the standing up of Merseyside’s Silver Control Room, which takes over management of major incidents from the Force Incident Manager. Although I do not consider that this is a matter which merits a formal recommendation I make the following observation.

Observation A: It should be incumbent on all Force Incident Managers to consider whether the criteria for a major incident are met and to declare one at the earliest opportunity.

¶132. The first armed response vehicles arrived at 34 Hart Street at or shortly before 12:15. With the perpetrator in custody by this point, CI Hughes directed that their initial role was to clear the Hart Space to ensure there were no further offenders. I would add that this would also ensure that there were no further unidentified casualties inside.²¹⁸²¹⁸ T/S: 12/60/13-61/23. As such, this was an entirely appropriate order to give, and two of the armed officers carried it out promptly. Other armed officers, who are trained to a higher level of first aid than unarmed police officers, began to assist in first aid. I do not consider that there was any meaningful delay in armed officers beginning to assist paramedics with first aid.

¶133. At 12:25, the first Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles meeting took place at the scene, bringing together the lead officers from the various emergency services in attendance. One feature of this meeting was that all agencies agreed that there were now sufficient first responders in place.²¹⁹²¹⁹ MERP000268; T/S: 12/63/7-65/10. That is important as when HM Coast Guard offered the Merseyside Police Force Control Room 10 to 15 first aiders to attend scene within 15 minutes at 12:41, that request was declined. In the circumstances, that was an appropriate decision to make. Too many people at a scene can be a challenge as well as having too few, and there is nothing to indicate that by this point there was any shortage of suitably trained and equipped first responders to provide care to the injured.²²⁰²²⁰ T/S: 12/64/22-65/17.

¶134. Beyond this, the police response continued to evolve. A more suitable RVP was selected, and a designated Bronze Commander was beginning to take over at the scene from Insp Cowin, while a designated Silver Commander was preparing to take over from CI Hughes. At 12:54, an entry was made on the log recording details of the telephone call from Mr Poland, described above. For the first time, this provided some biographical detail about the arrested suspect including a potential address of 10 Old School Close, as that was where Mr Poland had picked up AR. That led to the identification of previous intelligence held by Merseyside Police about AR, including a history from 2019 of him logging onto school websites involving school mass shootings and talking about guns and beheadings. CI Hughes deployed armed officers to the address. The need to deploy armed officers was because it was unclear whether there were further offenders present, or whether there were further victims at the address, or whether attending at the address would be dangerous for officers in some way. Although 10 Old School Close was in Lancashire rather than Merseyside, there were well-established principles for cross-border deployment of armed officers, and the address was secured by 13:28 with AR’s family being found unharmed.²²¹²²¹ T/S: 12/66/13-70/14.

¶135. By this point, the initial incident response was starting to conclude, and the investigation process was being stood up. CI Hughes handed over the incident to the designated Silver Commander at 13:34 and revoked the firearms authority at 13:44. By this point, there was a clear command structure for both the investigation and for incident response. Detectives were at the scene which had been secured and cordoned, AR was in custody and had been taken to a custody suite, a forensic strategy was being developed, there was ongoing work managing the members of the public, including family members, in Hart Street and at hospitals. The scene at 10 Old School Close was secured, family liaison officers were being deployed, and media and communications staff were working to inform the public about what had occurred.²²²²²² T/S: 12/70/22-74/3.

¶136. CI Hughes said that this incident – in which his involvement lasted a little under two hours – was unlike anything he had had to deal with before as a Force Incident Manager.²²³²²³ T/S: 12/74/11-16. Nevertheless, he considered that his training and experience equipped him well to deal with it, and although “it was a very chaotic, horrific incident which gets landed on you with no warning whatsoever” he did not at any stage feel overwhelmed or struggle to carry out his duties, and he had sufficient resources available at all times.²²⁴²²⁴ T/S: 12/74/17-75/12. His view was that the support of the second Force Incident Manager on duty, CI Neal Arrowsmith, was “absolutely essential”.²²⁵²²⁵ T/S: 12/75/8-12. The practice of having two Force Incident Managers on duty at all times was adopted by Merseyside Police following the Kerslake Report into the Manchester Arena Bombing, which came ahead of the public inquiry into the same event chaired by Sir John Saunders. Accordingly, I have made a recommendation at the end of this chapter in relation to support for Force Incident Managers across all police forces.

¶137. Overall, I agree with CI Hughes’ view that Joint Emergency Service Interoperability Principles operated effectively in this case.²²⁶²²⁶ T/S: 12/76/17-77/12. Although there was some initial and short-lived confusion, in particular over RVPs and deployment to the scene, this did not ultimately make any material difference to events on the ground.

¶138. The response as a whole was well-managed and displayed effective inter-agency liaison and communication.

¶139. It would be wrong to conclude this section of this report dealing with the initial police response without again highlighting the bravery of the unarmed officers, PS Gillespie and A/PS Holden, who attended along with PCSO Parry to detain AR. They did not know that he would surrender when challenged; they did not even know that he was alone. Their courage in entering a stairwell, against the advice of those who had seen how AR was armed and how he was behaving, is worthy of the highest praise.