Richard Okorogheye
(Picture: Met Police)Scotland Yard has apologised for its failings in the search for teenager Richard Okorogheye who was found dead in Epping Forest but no officers involved have been disciplined.
Richard Okorogheye went missing after leaving his home in Ladbroke Grove, west London, on March 22.
The 19-year-old student’s body was discovered in a lake 20 miles away, in Epping Forest, Essex, just over a week later.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said the force should apologise to his family after officers provided an “unacceptable level of service” to his mother, Evidence Joel, when he disappeared.
An IOPC probe found Mr Okorogheye should have been classed as a missing person earlier and he was classed as low risk for too long, while a call handler inaccurately recorded his medical condition as anaemia rather than sickle cell anaemia on the initial police report.
But the watchdog, which investigated following a complaint from Okorogheye’s mother said the officers’ actions did not meet the threshold for disciplinary action.
The IOPC said its investigation found the evidence did not show that the delay in upgrading Mr Okorogheye’s risk level was due to his or Ms Joel’s race.
Ms Joel also claimed a police officer made a racist comment but the watchdog said, while it could be considered “unprofessional”, it could not conclude the remark was “influenced by any bias regarding Richard’s ethnicity”.
IOPC Regional Director Sal Naseem said: “We have shared our findings with Richard’s family and our thoughts are with them and all those affected by his tragic death.
“Allegations of discrimination which are not overt are often difficult to prove and finely balanced. The evidence shows Ms Joel did have good reason to believe her concerns were not being taken seriously.
“She made multiple phone calls to police and concerns she raised about his condition were initially either mis-recorded or underestimated. This can only have heightened Ms Joel’s perception of prejudice, as sickle cell anaemia is particularly common in people with an African or Caribbean family background.
“While officers are not expected to have a specific level of medical knowledge, it does make it vital that concerns raised by family members or medical professionals are given proper consideration, which did not happen in Richard’s case.”
Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Bas Javid said: “Our thoughts remain with Richard’s family and I would like to apologise for the distress caused by the substandard level of service, as highlighted by the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
“It is clear the service we provided in the days following Richard’s disappearance was not at a level the public would expect of us, which included Richard not being classified as a missing person; his risk not being upgraded sooner; the communications with his mother not being as informative and precise as they could have been and, regrettably, an insensitive and inappropriate comment made by one of our officers.
“We will address these issues directly with the officers and staff involved through additional enhanced training.
“We recognise how worrying it must be to not know where a loved one is, and we are challenging ourselves to do better at responding when someone does report a missing person.
“To help us improve we are working with partners, such as the charity Missing People, to understand and learn from the experiences of different communities across London. We are also introducing a new way to assess all the missing person reports we receive every day.”
