Parents Accuse Police of Racial Bias in Missing Son Investigations
Christine Durand, a 70-year-old retiree from Leyland, has endured the unimaginable agony of her son Steven disappearing without a trace. Steven, then aged 31, vanished on 19 October 2018 while travelling from his sister's flat to his home in Preston, carrying only bus fare after losing his phone. Ms Durand reported him missing, but what followed was a series of distressing failures by Lancashire Constabulary that she believes stemmed from racial discrimination.
"I just feel like they've not cared at all, like I've been left on the shelf," Ms Durand told The Independent. "I used to have to go down to the police station every single day about my son, crying. They let me down on many occasions." The police misidentified Steven's ethnicity twice, describing him as white when he is mixed race, and Ms Durand alleges they ignored her instructions, such as breaking down his flat door when she had a spare key.
Systemic Issues in Missing Persons Cases
Ms Durand's experience is not isolated. Evidence Joel, a 43-year-old nurse, faced similar neglect when her son Richard Okorogheye, aged 19, went missing from Ladbroke Grove, London, on 22 March 2021. Richard had sickle cell syndrome and was without his medication, yet Ms Joel claims officers dismissed her concerns, telling her, "Don't worry, he'll come back home," and even, "If you can't find your son, how do you expect us to?" Richard was found dead in Epping Forest on 5 April 2021.
Both mothers believe their sons could have been found alive if police had acted properly. "I think the police are racist – I think they didn't care about my son because he was mixed race," said Ms Durand. Ms Joel echoed this, stating, "I felt the whole thing was governed by discrimination and racism." Research by charity Missing People supports these claims, showing that a lower proportion of missing Black (31 per cent) and Asian (35 per cent) people are found by police compared to white (39 per cent) people, with Black and Asian children more likely to be missing for longer periods.
Launch of SafeCall Lifeline Service
In response to these systemic failures, Missing People has launched the SafeCall service, a national lifeline designed to support the 72,000 children who go missing in the UK every year. The Independent's campaign successfully raised £165,000 to fund this free, confidential, round-the-clock service. Josie Allan, head of policy and partnerships at Missing People, highlighted that the charity has heard from multiple families who felt discriminated against due to their race, noting "underlying systemic bias" affects police responses.
"There are inherent issues in being able to identify discrimination in the complaints process," Ms Allan explained. "The data and the sheer amount of families who are raising concerns should be raising very serious concerns within policing that there is a pattern." The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has revised its guidance to improve the handling of discrimination complaints, but challenges remain.
Police Responses and Apologies
In Ms Durand's case, an internal investigation by Lancashire Constabulary found "insufficient evidence" of discrimination based on race or mental health, though the IOPC upheld her complaint about the door incident and the force apologised for the ethnicity errors. A spokesperson said extensive enquiries were conducted, including CCTV checks and media appeals, before archiving the case, but "any new information will be fully investigated."
The Metropolitan Police apologised to Ms Joel for providing a service "not at a level the public would expect," and accepted IOPC recommendations, implementing changes to their missing persons response. A spokesperson noted hundreds of officers searched for Richard over 15 days. However, the IOPC investigation described the service Ms Joel received as "unacceptable," though it found no evidence race caused delays.
These cases underscore ongoing issues in policing, as highlighted by the Home Affairs Select Committee's 2021 report, which suggested police have largely failed to overcome perceptions of institutional racism since the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. For families like Ms Durand and Ms Joel, the trauma of not feeling listened to persists, driving the need for initiatives like SafeCall to offer support and accountability.
