The police watchdog will take no further action against Metropolitan police officers in the case of the student nurse Owami Davies, whose family have said they are “forever grateful” that she was found alive.
The 24-year-old, from Grays, Essex, was located in Hampshire on Tuesday almost seven weeks after she went missing. She appeared to be “fit and well cared for” and was not in a vulnerable state, the force said.
The Met had faced criticism after it emerged that officers encountered Davies sleeping in the doorway of a house in Croydon, south London, on 6 July, the day she was reported missing. The force said Davies had not been marked as a missing person on the police database at the time.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) was considering whether to investigate officers over the contact but it announced that the case no longer met the criteria for a referral as Davies had been found well.
Davies has spoken to her family, who thanked those who had helped look for her in a statement on Twitter.
“We the Davies family would like to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you wherever you are, whoever you are. Thank you for your well wishes, love, hugs & thoughts. Together we searched far & beyond. We are forever grateful,” they said.
They added that their prayers had been answered as they thanked the public and media for sharing appeals about Davies’s disappearance.
“To everyone who hoped, retweeted, shared, tagged, word of mouth, posters, wrote about it, sang about it, however way you helped us #findowami you did an amazing job. God bless all of you. We thank you so much,” they said.
The news was also welcomed by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust in London, where Davies is believed to have secured a job before going missing.
“We are delighted that our colleague Owami has been found and is safe. Thank you to everyone who helped to find her,” the trust tweeted.
The family reported Davies missing to Essex police on 6 July. She had left the family home two days earlier, and was seen on CCTV at 12.30pm on 7 July in London Road, Croydon, south London. The case was transferred to the Met on 23 July.
Concerns grew for her safety after detectives said she could be “in need of help” in Croydon, or sleeping rough with no money on her Oyster card and no access to her phone or bank cards.
Officers arrested and bailed five men, two on suspicion of murder and three on suspicion of kidnap, as part of the investigation.
The IOPC said it received a referral after the arrests. “On 5 August we received a mandatory death or serious injury (DSI) referral from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), in relation to contact MPS officers had with Owami Davies on 6 July after she was reported missing,” a spokesperson said.
“Given that Owami Davies has now been found safe and we have not received information from the force that Ms Davies has suffered any serious injuries, the referral not does not meet the criteria for a DSI referral. We have advised the Met that it is invalid and therefore we will be taking no further action.”
The Met trawled through 10,000 hours of CCTV footage and examined 117 reported sightings in its search for the King’s College London student. A member of the public who spotted her in Hampshire on Tuesday morning contacted detectives with the 118th sighting.
DCI Nigel Penney, from the Met’s specialist crime command, said officers were trying to establish what led to Davies’s disappearance.
“Owami will be spoken to and we’ll try to fathom reasons as to how she disappeared, why she disappeared, and if there was any concern around the days and weeks while she was disappeared for us to be concerned about,” he said.
The Met commander Paul Brogden announced a review of the force’s handling of the case. “We will carry out the review in an open and transparent manner to ensure we have acted correctly and to identify any ways to improve our response to finding other missing people,” he said.
