Police Watchdog Criticises Norfolk Force After Grieving Family Told to Call a Locksmith Instead of Getting a Welfare Check

A police watchdog has issued a sharp rebuke to Norfolk Police after call handlers advised a worried family to contact a locksmith rather than sending officers to check on a man experiencing a mental health crisis. The man, 30-year-old Hobie Harrison, was discovered dead in his Norwich flat the following day.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that the force's 101 call handlers should have directed the family towards mental health services when they raised concerns on 6 August 2025. Instead, according to the watchdog, staff suggested the family consider hiring a locksmith to gain entry to the property. Hobie's parents, Mark and Roberta Harrison, had reached out to police after their son stopped responding to them — a highly unusual development given that he normally made contact several times a day.

The IOPC's report also criticised how Norfolk Police handled the family's subsequent complaint. After the Harrisons lodged a formal complaint in October 2025, the force responded by stating that officers should not have attended either of the two calls — including the second one that ultimately led to the discovery of Hobie's body. The watchdog described that response as "unnecessary and insensitive," a finding that adds to the mounting scrutiny of how police forces across England and Wales are implementing the Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) policy.

Norfolk Police has defended its position by pointing to the RCRP framework, which restricts officer attendance at welfare calls to situations involving an "immediate risk to life." The force said it is currently reviewing the IOPC's findings. A full inquest into Hobie's death is scheduled for November, and the force has declined to comment further ahead of those proceedings.

The RCRP policy, which has been rolled out by police forces nationally, is designed to reduce the number of officers dispatched to mental health-related calls that are better handled by health and social care professionals. Supporters argue it frees up police time for core crime-fighting duties. Critics, however, warn that the approach risks leaving vulnerable people without timely intervention when they fall through gaps in the healthcare system.

The IOPC's findings suggest those concerns may be well-founded. David Ford, the watchdog's director of oversight and casework, said the organisation had raised specific worries about how Norfolk Police interprets and monitors the RCRP initiative. "We have raised our concerns with the force around its interpretation of RCRP and monitoring of the initiative," Ford said. He added that, as a result, the force has agreed to conduct a review to determine whether there are any organisational lessons to be learned.

The case has drawn attention to the difficult judgments call handlers must make when families report concerns about a relative's mental state. According to the IOPC, the Norfolk call handlers failed to ask sufficiently probing questions to properly assess the level of risk Hobie faced. They also did not adequately explain to his parents why officers would not be sent under the RCRP guidelines — leaving the family confused and unsure where to turn.

Mark Harrison said the uncertainty has been devastating. "We'll never know whether he was still alive when we first called and whether something could have been done," he said. "He might already have been dead, but we'll never know." That unresolved question now sits at the heart of the family's grief and their complaint against the force.

Hobie had been adopted by Mark and Roberta as a child and had a history of drug use, according to his parents. He had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and developmental trauma, and was under the care of the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust Community Mental Health Team. Despite his difficulties, his parents described him as funny and mischievous, a man who loved music and enjoyed gardening. He had previously made threats of suicide.

The couple said Hobie had seemed in good spirits the last time they saw him before his death. Their alarm grew when more than 24 hours passed without any word from him. "The non-contact was just... it didn't happen. So, it was very, very unusual," Roberta said. Acting on instinct, they went to his flat but found they could not use their own key because his key was still in the lock on the inside of the door — a sign that he was likely inside.

"We were 100% certain he was in there and he wasn't responding, so we knew there was something seriously wrong," Mark said. Unable to break in, they called Norfolk Police and explicitly told call handlers about their son's history of self-harm and suicidal threats. After consulting a supervisor, the staff member informed them that the situation did not meet the threshold for a police response and suggested they consider contacting a locksmith. "We didn't know how to make a decision at that point or what to do quite frankly," Roberta said.

The following day, the family made a second request for a welfare check. On that occasion, officers attended and found Hobie dead inside his flat. The IOPC's report makes clear that the force's own review of the complaint concluded officers should not have attended even that second call — a position the watchdog found to be both needlessly hurtful and indicative of a troubling institutional mindset.

The watchdog's intervention raises broader questions about how police forces balance resource pressures against their duty of care to vulnerable members of the public. While RCRP is intended to ensure that mental health crises are handled by the appropriate agencies, the Harrison case illustrates the risk that families can be left without clear guidance or timely help when they are desperately seeking both. The IOPC has said it remains concerned that Norfolk Police may not fully grasp the risks associated with the policy as it is currently applied.

Norfolk Police has said it will undertake a review examining whether there are any organisational learnings from the case. For Mark and Roberta Harrison, however, no review can answer the question that haunts them: whether their first call for help could have made a difference. Their son's inquest in November is expected to examine the circumstances surrounding his death in greater detail, and it may yet shed further light on how the force's call-handling procedures operated on that day. Until then, the family must live with the knowledge that the advice they received was, in the words of the watchdog, not the help they needed.