People who are over 18 and who stay away of their own free will are not ‘missing persons’

There seems to be some confusion as to when and how the police are empowered to intervene when people over the age of 18 go ‘missing’. ‘Going missing’ and voluntary departure are two very different things, and the police have to make a discretionary judgement on that.

The point here is that they are not empowered to track down anybody over 18 who is not ‘missing’ but voluntarily absent. The police are empowered to intervene only if the ‘missing adult’ is thought to have been the victim of a crime: kidnapped and/or murdered, or otherwise involuntarily absent and held against his or her will. They are not even obliged – as distinct from empowered – to intervene if, for example, a dementia patient or otherwise ill person wanders off and gets lost. But if it’s a slow day at the office, they will.

People over the age of 18 are free to go away. They are not obliged to give those closest to them an explanation: going away without an explanation is not against the law.

Simply put, if a man chooses to buzz off, even if he is depressed and diabetic, there is nothing the police can or should do about it. It is up to the family to locate the person and to try to persuade him to return if he wishes to do so. People do not lose their rights and their free will just because they are depressed.

People understand this at a fundamental level, even without talk of human rights and the law. Several years ago, a friend of one of my sisters disappeared along with her baby. I was asked to help distribute small posters with her picture on them, asking for information on her whereabouts. I didn’t think twice about it, because I knew exactly why this was being done, though for privacy reasons it was not included in the poster message: she was at grave risk of suicide, she was likely to have killed herself already, heaven knew what had happened to the baby, but there was a small outside chance that she might have checked herself into a small hotel somewhere.

I noticed that many shopkeepers were accepting my posters but then not putting them up. It was my newsagent who knew me well enough to tell me point blank, “Daphne, I’m not putting this up. If she ran off, then she had good reason to do so and maybe she just doesn’t want to be found.” I explained about the suicide risk and he responded that in that case, it was probably too late already.

In the end she was found drowned, along with her baby still strapped into the car-seat, in the car which she had driven off a quay.

Thomas Stewart, who ran away from Mount Carmel Hospital, where he was being treated for depression, 10 weeks ago and has not returned home. His wife is calling on the police to look for him, but Mr Stewart is over 18 and the police are not empowered to hunt him down.