Persistent missing teens are ‘not really a police issue’

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TIME spent tracing missing teenagers is an “unsustainable” burden for police, one of the UK’s most senior chief constables has warned.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said other police work was compromised by thousands of calls that would be better dealt with by social workers.

Police in England, Scotland and Wales dealt with 306,000 missing people in 2012/13, according to the latest UK Missing Persons Bureau figures. 

Each missing person call costs an average of £1,325, said researchers at Portsmouth University.

Sir Peter (pictured) said the priority must be to protect children, but questioned whether police officers were the best professionals to do that.

He told the BBC: “The public and politicians have made it clear that they don’t want to see young people being put at risk in these situations because of the concern about what happened in places like Rochdale and Rotherham.

“We need a different approach.”

Sir Peter’s comments on what he called an “unsustainable” situation follow comments by National Police Chiefs Council Chair Sara Thornton, who said that the public should no longer expect to see a police officer following crimes such as burglary, and encouraged a “conversation with the public” over priorities.

Sir Peter added: “Every single day, sergeants and inspectors have to make hard decisions about what they are going to do, and missing children will always be top of the priority list.

“That means there will be other calls that we can’t attend to, where we try to deal with them on the phone and where, perhaps appointments get cancelled, where crimes are put off to be investigated on another day.

“When you have somebody who constantly goes missing, it is not really for me a police issue. It is really, absolutely, a social work issue.”

He added: “There are other professionals who are really better trained to deal with this. And that is really part of the discussion we have to have with other agencies.”