Six weeks on from the disappearance of Owami Davies, the Metropolitan police say they still have 40,000 hours of footage from CCTV cameras and other devices to go through in its search for the student nurse.
If not quite seeking a needle in a haystack, the force insists it is devoting huge resources and elite detectives to finding one person in a city of more than 8 million, unsure if any crime has been committed.
Davies, 24, with a future seemingly full of promise, left her home in Grays, Essex, on 4 July.
Her mother says her nickname was “Princess” because she adored Disney. Davies’s family are enduring a nightmare and, in a country full of surveillance cameras, there is little trace of her.
The Met’s search of 10,000 hours of footage has produced images placing her in Croydon on 7 July. She was seen walking with a man, in a shop and later on the street.
Despite appeals, she has made no contact with her family, missing person charities or police. Her mobile phone and bank cards have also offered no clues since the last sighting of her.
Nicol, her desperate mother, has made appeals for her daughter to make contact and fears for her safety have grown – as has the family’s anguish.
Met officers came across her early in the police search, it has been revealed, but did not realise who she was. She was reported missing to Essex police on 6 July, the force has confirmed, two days after Owami last left the family home.
That evening, at about 11pm, Met officers went to a home in Clarendon Road, Croydon, 30 miles away, to investigate concerns about the welfare of a woman.
A source said the woman only gave her first name as Owami, and footage recorded by officers’ body cameras shows her in a distressed state. Officers offered to call an ambulance for her, but she declined.
Crucially, the Met insists, she was not at that stage listed as missing, or as high risk, and her details were not on the Police National Computer. Furthermore, as no criminal offence was involved, officers had no powers to do anything else.
A Met spokesperson said: “The interaction recorded on the officers’ body-worn video has been viewed by members of the Independent Advisory Group and Owami’s family to ensure openness and transparency.
“At the time of the call, Owami was not marked as a missing person on national police systems. She had only been reported to her local force as missing earlier the same day.
“As a result of the subsequent missing person investigation, it was later confirmed – on 13 July – that the woman officers had spoken to was Owami.”
Essex police were in charge of the investigation until 23 July and insist they classed Davies as high risk, treating the case with due seriousness.
Concerns over the 24-year-old’s health meant she was seen as vulnerable.
The revelation that Met officers spoke to Davies is expected to be investigated by the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, after a referral by the force. Currently, the IOPC is considering what action needs to be taken and the scope of any inquiry.
For the Met, dogged by a collapse in public confidence and problems with its services to women and ethnic minorities, claims it has not taken the case seriously enough were feared and have been rejected.
A Met spokesperson said: “Our efforts to find Owami are being led by a team of detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, who are experts in complex investigations. They are supported by resources from local policing teams and are working night and day to pursue every possible line of inquiry.
“As of Tuesday this week they had recovered 50,000 hours of CCTV and had viewed 10,000 hours as they work to confirm possible sightings and trace Owami’s movements. They continue to carry out additional patrols in the area she was last seen in an effort to identify new leads.
“Any suggestion that the investigation is not being taken seriously and that we are not fully dedicated to finding Owami is not only disappointing, it is simply not supported by the facts.”
Police have arrested and bailed five men, two on suspicion of murder, and three for kidnap. The Guardian understands detectives believe at least some of them were known to Davies before 4 July.
Missing person reports are a difficult issue for forces. They are time-consuming, and frequently no crime has been committed – someone just wants to disappear. In the year to May 2022, the Met received 43,040 missing person reports concerning 21,072 people. Of these, about 5,000 reports were assessed as high risk.
One police source said: “Even if you find them, it does not mean you can drag them back. It is not a crime to go missing.”
Detectives are none the wiser over Davies’s lack of contact with her family and failure to attend work.
She was close to finishing her studies, having secured a job at Guy’s and St Thomas’ health trust. She had worked in accident and emergency department during the Covid crisis and was interested in studying infectious diseases, according to her family.
Further appeals from the Met are expected this week, and for Davies’s family, the agony continues.
Anyone with information can call the police on 020 8721 4622, or to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online.
