Up until the end of November we dealt with 468 missing person reports involving 103 individuals of all ages. It was a similar story in 2012. Regardless of previous occurrences, each report has to be risk assessed owing to the potential vulnerabilities of the people involved in the circumstances reported.
Enquiries into each report can take hours, even days, of police staff and officers’ time, with each person being risk assessed to determine the appropriate level of response and direction of enquiries.
The majority of people turn up safe and well - many unaware that people are worried about them.
As we all know at the moment many young people have been affected by the death of another teenager so when they go to get a bit of space we want to find them safe and well as soon as possible and in those circumstances we need the help of the community, which is when we ask for your help.
Parents can help by thinking of three things –
• Make sure your child has a phone with them, which is charged and has credit
• Make sure you know where they are or who they are with (ideally have their friends phone numbers too)
• Have an idea of what your child is wearing
We will keep asking for your help and appeal to all the parents out there to have a conversation with your child about staying in contact and being available to take a phone call to let someone know you are safe.
To all young people we would like to say that we understand that at times you want some peace and quiet (we were there once too!) however please let someone know where you are and if you need help then there are lots of people waiting to assist.
