Police in Bath, and particularly the city centre’s Community Police Officers, have been singled out for praise for their vital work in investigating the murder of a rough sleeper, Thomas Downey, over Christmas 2014.
Temporary Detective Chief Inspector Julie Mackay, who led the enquiry, said that without their local knowledge and the trust they had created with Bath’s homeless community, the murder would have been much more difficult and taken much longer to solve.
She said: “They were superb. The local Bath teams couldn’t have worked harder that week between Christmas and New Year. Nothing was too much trouble.
“In particular it was PCSOs at the heart of working with the rough sleeping and homeless community, building up trust and a working relationship, that were critical in making this a successful investigation.
“The police and homeless people relationship was already good in Bath and we were able to build on that and to make it better.
“If they didn’t trust the police to any degree they wouldn’t have co-operated and we wouldn’t have had any of them as witnesses.”
T/Det Insp Mackay was speaking after the jailing of another rough sleeper, Darrell Richards, for Mr Downey’s manslaughter at Bristol Crown Court earlier this month.
She said: “The body of Thomas Downey was discovered in a railway arch in Bath on Christmas Eve 2014. He was not identified until Christmas Day which meant his family – he was father to four children – had to receive the tragic news on a day that is usually filled with happiness.
“It took a further 48 hours to identify potential suspects and it wasn’t until the 29th December 2014 that Richards was arrested and subsequently charged on the 31st December.
“On Christmas Day morning we didn’t know who he was, what had happened, who else was present and who was responsible. We didn’t know anything.
“Obviously he was from the homeless community, so detectives and local police officers and PCSOs set out to engage with that community and the partners that help them. like Julian House and the Genesis Trust.
“We were trying to find out who lived in those circles under the arches. We found bonfires, sleeping bags and items of personal property.
“We were told that people there were possessive of their space and property – if you lived in arch number eight you didn’t encroach on number nine. We found out personal details like who had a dog, or a guitar.
“We were trying to get something identifiable about the victim that would distinguish him from the next person, so we could try to find him on CCTV. He had been dead for nine days.
“Thanks to the work of the local teams we had an identity by the afternoon of Christmas Day and we able to contact his family in Manchester to break the news to them.”
PCSOs Julie Durbin and Brian Harris were particularly involved because of their close links and years of working with Bath’s street drinkers and homeless people.
Julie said: “I’ve been doing this for ten years and have got to know them personally and built up a relationship with them. We know where they sleep, where they spend their days, so when our investigation team needed to talk to anyone we could find them and bring them in for interview.”
Brian said: “It was very rewarding to be a part of a major investigation and to be part of one team working together to one aim. Our expertise is local, grassroots policing and that was obviously very valuable to detectives coming into the city from outside.”
After Richards was arrested and charged, it fell to the two PCSOs and their Bath colleagues to take responsibility for looking after the contacts in the rough sleeper and homeless community.
Those living under the arches had been displaced so police had to replace their belongings, like sleeping bags, because they preferred to stay living on the streets. The beat teams did regular patrols, checking that witness were well. That continued for nearly a year before the case came to court.
T/Det Insp Mackay said: “This is by far one of the most challenging murder investigations I have encountered. The victim, suspect and witnesses were all vulnerable people who were homeless, and either drug or alcohol dependent, or both, and were not trusting of the police.
“The outstanding work by the local police in Bath in identifying, locating, monitoring and responding to the community was crucial in the success of this case.”