Found Safe UK - Antonino Coppola, 23, from Richmond, Surrey, missing from Bow, East London, 16 Sep 2021

Unfortunately, the issue of such information on Web Sleuth's is that it is not assessed and graded on its accuracy/corroboration of the information and the reliability of the source. MSM is, at least supposed to have a degree of accuracy and reliability......that's a whole other thread though!

Essentially we are anonymous and anyone can create an account and contribute material which may be accurate, partly accurate, totally inaccurate or intended to deliberately mislead.

I feel the police have good reasons for not providing a running commentary in this matter. Unfortunately we can only use our instinct and for some that is based on professional experience and is quite possibly not that far from what occurred.

They don't have to give running commentary, but surely if they do, that can also help people with more targeted searches/shares/appeals? I do remember in the cases of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa there were constants updates and appeals, and they even got the killers within days.

Obviously any post here cannot be verified for it's accuracy and could have misleading intent, but noone can deny either that the whole story took more underworld direction since those bombshells were thrown.
 
Just my thoughts, but putting myself insituation, I would phone family first, because it would be like, "Tony has gone off and left me with all the luggage. What am I going to do Mum? Where the hell do you think he is?" and Mum makes soothing noises and says, "Have you tried Uncle Luka, he lives just round the corner?" etc. etc. You're twenty years old and you haven't really got the hang of life yet... I don't think I would contact police until I had exhausted any lines of ordinary inquiry.

Yes, I see your line of thinking exactly and don't disagree.

I believe that C contacted AC's family not his own.....could be wrong.

I guess our initial actions depend on the circumstances and previous experience. Consequently we have alternative thought process, different assessment of risk, various scenarios playing and different action responses.

To clarify my original post. Yes, I'd eliminate the most likely scenarios, e.g. in a pharmacy, pub toilet, public toilet, at known nearby friends, taken to one of the local hospital's etc. Then I'd be reporting to local police directly. However, I understand being younger, with less life experience an automatic response could be to contact the family to inform them and seek guidance. Although I'm surprised that C left it to the family in Italy to make the report via the Italian authorities.

I also understand that calling the police is something that many worry about, i.e. "what do I say"? "I don't want to waste their time". Of course try and rule out the plausible scenarios before calling, but if they are negative and someone could be at risk then make the call. If in any doubt make that call straight-away, particularly where children are concerned.
 
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I have read elsewhere that C had good command of English and was not new to the England, although I can't recall the exact source of this information. Can someone assist?

Apparently C was not as familiar in finding his way around London, therefore we are told that AC took the lead on this.

Why did C feel it necessary to contact AC's family in Italy in the first instance and not reach out to the British Police if he was concerned?

How many of us when abroad with a friend a family member who went missing, would contact family back home in the first instance? I know I wouldn't! What would your instinct be, particularly if you had a good command of the language?

Now if I had reason to want to supress police involvement, supress detail and required time to get some things in order, then I may well make a call back home first and give the conservative, possibly misleading, detail, knowing that it would pass through a lengthy process of 'Chinese Whispers' before the report was logged in the UK. Just MOO
Hard to say what C should/could have done, or if he didn’t want Uk police involved. His English may/may not be that good. AC’s family reporting him missing to Italian foreign office is understandable, esp as UK is no longer in the EU. And they did so quickly. FB appeal by Richmond Police was published the morning after.
 
They don't have to give running commentary, but surely if they do, that can also help people with more targeted searches/shares/appeals? I do remember in the cases of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa there were constants updates and appeals, and they even got the killers within days.

Obviously any post here cannot be verified for it's accuracy and could have misleading intent, but noone can deny either that the whole story took more underworld direction since those bombshells were thrown.

The bottom line for the police is the public safety issue. In the case of Sabina Nessa, two suspects were arrested quickly and subsequently released and then CCTV was issued of a man who police wanted to identify as a matter of urgency. He was arrested within 24-48 hours of the CCTV images release, I recall.

Police released images of Sarah Everard on the evening and in the area she went missing to try and prompt someone to recall and report any information about seeing her, which could help in identifying anyone she was seen with and in turn locate her. What the police didn't do was to provide details of the vehicle they were interested in, for obvious operational reasons.

Police investigations in the UK are subject to confidentiality and operate very much on a need to know basis within the police itself. When the potential risk to public safety outweighs some of the confidentiality or a significant case can be progressed more effectively, with minimum impact on that confidentiality, then the police will make a public appeal and disclose certain information. This will be in a measured way and only reveal as much as is necessary to achieve their aims.
 
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I don’t think any of the young people I know would have phoned the police in those circumstances. I think it much more natural to contact his family in Italy (perhaps via C’s family as we didn’t tend to have phone numbers of housemates’ parents).
 
The bottom line for the police is the public safety issue. In the case of Sabina Nessa, two suspects were arrested quickly and subsequently released and then CCTV was issued of a man who police wanted to identify as a matter of urgency. He was arrested within 24-48 hours of the CCTV images release, I recall.

Police released images of Sarah Everard on the evening and in the area she went missing to try and prompt someone to recall and report any information about seeing her, which could help in identifying anyone she was seen with and in turn locate her. What the police didn't do was to provide details on the vehicle they were interested in, for obvious operational reasons.

Police investigations in the UK are subject to confidentiality and operate very much on a need to know basis within the police itself. When the potential risk to public safety outweighs some of the confidentiality or a significant case can be progressed more effectively, with minimum impact on that confidentiality, then the police will make a public appeal and disclose certain information. This will be in a measured way and only reveal as much as is necessary to achieve their aims.

That's the thing in the case of the women above, CCTV of suspect man released to speed up the hunt down and the fact that two suspects were arrested and released.

3 weeks to release CCTV of AC missing is too much imo. This could have been done in days. No targeted appeal for CCTV from other business or passer by. No coordinated effort to share appeals between boroughs. 18 days later, and Richmond Police was still quoting Bow Street, instead of Bow Road. Again my opinion that this was not good enough.

There is no need to possibly announce "we are interrogating XYZ or specifically C because they gave incomplete information a few days ago", but what they can verify (or deny) is : "has there been any card/phone activity", "has there been any suspect" or "has there been any other CCTV sighting and in which area".
 
That's the thing in the case of the women above, CCTV of suspect man released to speed up the hunt down and the fact that two suspects were arrested and released.

3 weeks to release CCTV of AC missing is too much imo. This could have been done in days. No targeted appeal for CCTV from other business or passer by. No coordinated effort to share appeals between boroughs. 18 days later, and Richmond Police was still quoting Bow Street, instead of Bow Road. Again my opinion that this was not good enough.

There is no need to possibly announce "we are interrogating XYZ or specifically C because they gave incomplete information a few days ago", but what they can verify (or deny) is : "has there been any card/phone activity", "has there been any suspect" or "has there been any other CCTV sighting and in which area".
Agree. AC’s brother and father went to London almost immediately and would have stressed how out of character AC’s disappearance was. Had that been a young, attractive, middle class English girl with a solicitor or GP father, I bet there would have been a lot more pressure on LE for a quick response. JMOO
 
That's the thing in the case of the women above, CCTV of suspect man released to speed up the hunt down and the fact that two suspects were arrested and released.

3 weeks to release CCTV of AC missing is too much imo. This could have been done in days. No targeted appeal for CCTV from other business or passer by. No coordinated effort to share appeals between boroughs. 18 days later, and Richmond Police was still quoting Bow Street, instead of Bow Road. Again my opinion that this was not good enough.

There is no need to possibly announce "we are interrogating XYZ or specifically C because they gave incomplete information a few days ago", but what they can verify (or deny) is : "has there been any card/phone activity", "has there been any suspect" or "has there been any other CCTV sighting and in which area".

Without over-elaborating it's important to consider whether, based on the information the police have about AC, in what context they believe he may be missing and if there is any connected activity, which may have caused him to go missing.

Such situations will dictate how the police manage the investigation and what, if any, information they convey to the public. Many of us here will be aware of the some of the police methods used in an investigation. Confirmation that they are being used during the course of a specific investigation could often be counter-productive.

However, I do agree regarding the Bow Street versus Bow Road misinformation. This is down to a lack of attention to detail and that is not acceptable, when the motto should be "trust nothing, question everything".

I suspect that AC was graded as being of low risk of harm initially. It may have been only after more information was gathered and the investigation was handed to a Detective Inspector that the inter-station co-operation and press releases improved.
 
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Agree. AC’s brother and father went to London almost immediately and would have stressed how out of character AC’s disappearance was. Had that been a young, attractive, middle class English girl with a solicitor or GP father, I bet there would have been a lot more pressure on LE for a quick response. JMOO

It's not just about the demographic of the missing person, although I acknowledge that recent history indicates some bias, which can impact on effective decision making.

It is also very much about the missing persons personal circumstances, their state of mind and the circumstances of their disappearance. which all feeds into the risk of harm assessment and hence the resources allocated to an investigation.

This is a contentious issue for so many reasons but it is important to remember that the devil is often in the detail......detail which we are not privy too. Our perception based on what we know is no doubt very different to that of the police, who have much better insight and a response to match, although it may not be played out in the public eye.
 
I have read elsewhere that C had good command of English and was not new to the England, although I can't recall the exact source of this information. Can someone assist?

Apparently C was not as familiar in finding his way around London, therefore we are told that AC took the lead on this.

Why did C feel it necessary to contact AC's family in Italy in the first instance and not reach out to the British Police if he was concerned?

How many of us when abroad with a friend a family member who went missing, would contact family back home in the first instance? I know I wouldn't! What would your instinct be, particularly if you had a good command of the language?

Now if I had reason to want to supress police involvement, supress detail and required time to get some things in order, then I may well make a call back home first and give the conservative, possibly misleading, detail, knowing that it would pass through a lengthy process of 'Chinese Whispers' before the report was logged in the UK.

Just MOO

There is a difference though in my mind between a family member and a friend/flatmate. If I was abroad with a friend and I couldn't find or contact them I think personally I'd check if they'd contacted their family before I wanted to deal with a foreign Police force. I'd be more concerned after knowing they hadn't contacted their family or their family couldn't contact them then I would before.

JMO.
 
Agree. AC’s brother and father went to London almost immediately and would have stressed how out of character AC’s disappearance was. Had that been a young, attractive, middle class English girl with a solicitor or GP father, I bet there would have been a lot more pressure on LE for a quick response. JMOO

Not to derail the thread. But I think this is really more of a media problem. The media pushes cases that sell and generate clicks rather than any prioritisation of severity. There are plenty of missing people each day where the Police request information that get barely any media attention. Media attention then creates more Police attention.

A media outlet could do a decent article querying why it's taken so long for footage to be released and why basic information was not correct and at the same time raising awareness of the case. But it doesn't fit with the current agenda.

JMO.
 
Agree. AC’s brother and father went to London almost immediately and would have stressed how out of character AC’s disappearance was. Had that been a young, attractive, middle class English girl with a solicitor or GP father, I bet there would have been a lot more pressure on LE for a quick response. JMOO
I agree
 
Without over-elaborating it's important to consider whether, based on the information the police have about AC, in what context they believe he may be missing and if there is any connected activity, which may have caused him to go missing.

Such situations will dictate how the police manage the investigation and what, if any, information they convey to the public. Many of us here will be aware of the some of the police methods used in an investigation. Confirmation that they are being used during the course of a specific investigation could often be counter-productive.

However, I do agree regarding the Bow Street versus Bow Road misinformation. This is down to a lack of attention to detail and that is not acceptable, when the motto should be "trust nothing, question everything".

I suspect that AC was graded as being of low risk of harm initially. It may have been only after more information was gathered and the investigation was handed to a Detective Inspector that the inter-station co-operation and press releases improved.

I queried the Bow Street/Bow Road early on when I first started the case, as there is a Bow Street station - in Wales! It was not made clear at the start where the station was.

I am not so sure the police had further info when they started with the renewed appeals. More like the family had started to press them on what they were doing, as didn't seem a lot, plus it now going into weeks, and possibly the Italian embassy contacting them over a missing national.

Perhaps understandably, when as I said previously, he is a fit and healthy young man, with no known mental or physical health issues to mark him down as vulnerable or a suicide risk, and there with no suspicious circumstances, his disappearance would not be seen as high risk.
 
I have removed myself from the "private conversation" about this thread on the very practical grounds that my email box is full of notifications, and I was beginning to ask myself why it was a private conversation. I'll post any new thoughts on here
Just to add, I offered no opinion that I had not already given on this thread.
 
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I have removed myself from the "private conversation" about this thread on the very practical grounds that my email box is full of notifications, and I was beginning to ask myself why it was a private conversation. I'll post any new thoughts on here
Just to add, I offered no opinion that I had not already given on this thread.
You can turn off notifications.
 
I queried the Bow Street/Bow Road early on when I first started the case, as there is a Bow Street station - in Wales! It was not made clear at the start where the station was.

I am not so sure the police had further info when they started with the renewed appeals. More like the family had started to press them on what they were doing, as didn't seem a lot, plus it now going into weeks, and possibly the Italian embassy contacting them over a missing national.

Perhaps understandably, when as I said previously, he is a fit and healthy young man, with no known mental or physical health issues to mark him down as vulnerable or a suicide risk, and there with no suspicious circumstances, his disappearance would not be seen as high risk.

You are making assumptions about AC being fit and healthy, having no physical/mental impairments and no despondency or suicidal feelings/intent.

These are not details that would be immediately available to the police and rarely is medical information about missing people revealed to the media by the police.

I would beg to differ that the circumstances of AC's disappearance were not suspicious. On the contrary they are unusual and unexpected.

The initial missing person report would have most likely been recorded by a telephone operator, most likely a civilian operator and not an experienced police officer. This initial record was probably a skeleton report with the detail not completed.....remember it came via Italy too, though a variety of sources, increasing the likelihood of inaccuracies. C was most likely not spoken to until some time later.

The report would have been forwarded to the appropriate command unit covering the address AC was missing from (reportedly the Richmond area).

I suspect that not until after the initial enquires were completed was the risk of harm assessment raised and the case became the responsibility of a Detective Inspector. Before this it was quite possibly a uniformed and relatively inexperienced police constable carrying out the basic enquiries, not a trained and experienced detective.

Hundreds of people are reported missing in the capital each day. The vast majority return within 24 hours. The police priority will be for those who have an identified risk of harm. Other reports will prompt routine background enquiries not a dedicated CID investigation and the cavalry being rolled out.
 
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