he family of Gaia Pope-Sutherland has criticized police after an investigation revealed she had died of hypothermia hours after running away from home while suffering a mental health crisis.
They said Dorset police had abandoned the teen when she reported being raped and had also abandoned her in the first two days after she went missing in Swanage in November 2017.
Blaming a decade of austerity measures, the 19-year-old’s family called on police to create a specialist unit to investigate rape and serious sex crimes.
“For two years they did nothing but desert Gaia. They failed to prosecute her rapist. They didn’t treat her with respect,” Cousin Marienna Pope-Weidemann said.
“They, like Dorset Healthcare, failed to take protective measures or provide support in the ongoing harassment of the known child molester she had reported for rape and threat of murder.
“Gaia’s Story Embodies Everything Wrong With” British police and budget cuts that get to the heart of why public confidence has never been lower.”
The Dorset coroner learned that Miss Pope-Sutherland, who suffered from severe epilepsy, was reported missing from her home in Swanage on 7 November 2017.
A search was launched and her body was found on November 18 by police search teams in the undergrowth between Dancing Ledge and Anvil Point, close to Swanage’s coastal path.
A few missed opportunities could be human errors, but that many aren’t
An investigative jury found that she had died of hypothermia within 18 hours of the maiden flight and that her mental health and state on the day she disappeared “probably caused or contributed more than minimally” to her death.
The Pope-Sutherland family also criticized senior coroner Rachael Griffin’s decision to instruct the jury not to consider the police’s accepted failings as contributing factors to her death.
“It is a shocking charge against the judicial system that before the inquest began, so much of Gaia’s story was excluded and later that most of the evidence heard by the jury, including the police’s failure to search, was from the table was taken before considering them at all,” said Miss Pope-Weidemann.
“We remain concerned that this was not the full and fearless investigation we were promised, and perhaps that is the biggest opportunity we missed.
“A few missed opportunities may be human error, but not that many.
“This number can only be seen as the wreckage left by a perfect storm of unchecked misogyny and a decade of austerity that has brought our public services to their knees.”
The coroner said she would write to send future death reports to the… Health Secretary and local NHS bosses with her concerns about epilepsy care, resources and communication.
She will also report her concerns to Dorset Police about missing persons policies and the use of internal computer systems.
The Police College will also be contacted about concerns about the training of officers dealing with people suffering from epilepsy and mental health problems.
During the 11-week study in Bournemouthcourt heard the teen was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she revealed she had been drugged and raped by a man when she was 16.
At the time of her disappearance, she was concerned about his imminent release from prison for disconnected sex crimes.
The inquest found that police had accepted several shortcomings in the hunt for Ms Pope-Sutherland, such as delays in registering her as missing and rating her as “average risk of harm”.
Search records on the police’s computer system were also retroactively changed.
The student had spent several weeks in hospital in February and March 2017 – where she was sexually harassed by a patient – after being classified under the Mental Health Act.
She was further examined at Poole Hospital in October after her mental health deteriorated, but was later discharged and sent home without any community support.
Dorset Police said they had tried to “identify and implement” improvements to their organization following the death of Miss Pope-Sutherland.
Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Farrell said: “We make a commitment today to respond quickly to knowledge that was not already part of our improvement program.
“We recognize that our immediate response to the missing persons investigation as a force should have been better managed.
“Gaia and her family did not receive the service they should have received after her disappearance. We should have done a lot better, especially during those first 48 hours and we’re really sorry for that.”