Teen died after 'unacceptable delay' in police accessing her flat

There was an “unacceptable delay” in police breaking into the flat of a young woman who took her own life in her bedroom, a jury concluded at an inquest.

- JONATHON HILL

The hearing at Newport Coroner's Court was told Alex Duce had taken an overdose a month before she took her own life in her bedroom but was not treated as an emergency case.

Alex, 18, was pronounced dead in hospital on September 16, 2022, after she hanged herself in her bedroom at her flat in Castle Street, Tredegar, days before on September 11.

The beauty student had taken an overdose weeks before in July of that year and was considered a vulnerable person.

But multiple Gwent Police officers told an inquest into her death that it was their role not to assess whether someone was vulnerable but to determine the risk they posed to themselves and others.

At the time Alex was not considered above the threshold detailed in Section 17 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act for police to force entry into her home after she had been reported missing by her mother, Angharad Lewis.

Once enough information had been gathered about Alex to force entry into the flat on the afternoon of September 11 it was ultimately too late.

She had hanged herself and required emergency CPR, which did revive her temporarily, but she died at Prince Charles Hospital days later.

During Alex's inquest, which was heard by a jury, Newport Coroner's Court heard that Ms Lewis had called South Wales Police late on the evening of September 10, 2022, informing the call handler that she was worried about the welfare of her daughter before the details of the call were passed on to Gwent Police as Alex lived in that force’s region.

Bethan Charles, who was working at the Gwent Police headquarters in Cwmbran that night, told the inquest she was the person tasked with ringing Ms Lewis to inform her officers would at that point not be attending the flat after considering the information they had received from her.

Summarising the incident, Ms Charles said this followed a report from a mother concerned about her daughter's wellbeing.