FOI 14510-25 Officer Suicides & Investigations
Request:
I am conducting research to better understand the mental health challenges faced by police officers in the UK. To that end, I would be grateful if you could provide the following information for your force for each of the past 10 calendar years (2015 to 2025 inclusive):
1. Police Officer Suicides
- The number of police officers (serving or recently serving) who have died by suicide.
2. Investigations at Time of Death Of those officers who died by suicide:
- How many were under investigation by your Professional Standards Department (PSD)?
- How many were under investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC)?
3. Occupational and Personal Context (if available and anonymised) For each officer who died by suicide, please provide (where available and without compromising privacy):
- Their role or department (e.g., frontline, CID, custody, firearms).
- Their length of service.
- Whether they had accessed internal mental health or wellbeing services.
- Whether they were on sick leave or had recently returned from sick leave.
- Whether they were subject to misconduct or disciplinary proceedings.
- Age, gender, and ethnicity (if recorded and anonymised).
Response:
1. Searches were conducted within Northamptonshire Police and I can now confirm that Northamptonshire Police does not hold any information relative to your request. This is because Northamptonshire Police would record the reason for leaving as Death but not the cause. Northamptonshire Police do not record employee suicides.
2. Information not held: see above
3. Information not held: see above