I’ve been reported as a missing person!

[Lizzielocket]

Frequent poster and have name changed for this.
I was woken by my mobile ringing about 40 minutes ago, I answered it on the second call, it was the police, they were outside my property and wanted to come in. I duly went downstairs and let them in.
I was starting to feel panicky as I have elderly parents and an adult DD who doesn’t live at home anymore.
I was asked my full name which I told them, they then told me I have been reported as a missing person. Somebody had told them that my father and partner couldn’t make contact with me and they were very worried about me. I was with my father this afternoon and I said goodnight to my partner around 2 hours ago by text as he’s at an airport and was about to fly.
I am now in bed with a cup of tea and feeling very confused. They checked on my sleeping DC too.
I don’t know why I’m posting to be honest, has anybody else experienced this?
I’m a very normal woman with a very normal life, they insisted that the call to them wasn’t malicious. So very confused!

I might have missed it, but why did they need to check on your DC if this is about you being missing? It sounds very fishy to me.

Curious.

Hope you are feeling OK and not freakedOP.

I have a friend, who, when depressed just stays in her house, doesn't answer the phone unless she knows who is calling and doesn't answer her door.

She didn't answer the door one day, not realising it was the police, so the PC went and got the, I don't know the name, mini battering ram thing.

I think the timing is odd, in that your DP has just gone away, and the time of night the police came. Also as others have said the fact they checked on DD. I hope you are ok OP.

During severe weather in our area DH had just made it back - the police turned up to do a welfare check onesomeone they insisted DH knew and had been told was stopping with us.

We told them no one was stopping with us and didn't recognise the name.They asked to look around found our kids off school in back room watching TV and asked them if anyone was stopping here and checked they were all right they also did quick checked upstairs. All while the other office was trying to get us to remember who this guy was and if we knew where he was.

They asked for more information he was early 30s described as vulnerable – but no information as to why – Grandparents had reported him as missing and thought he was visiting a friend in wales – not our city or region of wales just wales. Best we could come up with was he was living in area DH grew up in and hasn’t lived for 20 years apparently, they’d used Facebook to identify DH as the friend.

They here best part of an hour with weather and snow getting worse and worse. I think once they get a report they do have to be though.

I also think it was your friend who came over OP sorry, things like this are usually closely connected to you.

It's not odd the police checked on the children. They covered all bases. How terrible would it have been if they didn't and something terrible had happened?

Have you said things on Twitter/Facebook that annoyed certain parts of the populations? There seems to be some harrassment occurring from these sorts of things - including malicious home deliveries, police visits and the like. Some people seem to have little problem putting 2 and 2 together and finding people's details on-line (or maybe not even on-line) to effect such harrassment.

I find it baffling if this is a malicious event, how on earth do some people have the energy to behave like this? I'm waaaay to lazy and boring to bother.

I'm interested to find out if you get to know who the hell did this and if they get a bloody good ticking off from the police.

I don't understand why they didn't call to confirm you were okay, instead of coming round AND calling? Can anyone associated with the police explain?

Hmm, maybe because if you were in distress someone else could have pretended to be you or pressured you to say you were fine, and they wanted to make sure you were in your home? But checking on the kids is strange too. I wonder if it was something other than a missing person - do police every provide a slightly different story to check something out?

Sounds like another police cockup to me.

The police should really have checked with the Op’s father and partner to confirm they really hadn’t spoken to her for a week. Probably it was because there were children there that they decided to treat it more urgently and just go round to do a safe and well check.
My money would be on the children’s father - presumably they’re from a previous relationship as I think the Op said her daughter with current partner had gone on the trip with him.

There are a lot of police knocking on doors recently!

Nigella, wtf? Police booty call?

why would they have gone to your house if you were reported missing?! Very bizarre.

That was exactly my thinking too. An adult sleeping in her own home at midnight must be the most boringly unmysterious occurrence ever.

I'm guessing that, if somebody had tried the old trick on these police and told them to "Look at that dead bird!", they would instantly have looked up to the sky - and maybe called for the backup aerial binocular squad.

This is quite worrying, really. Yes, adults do go missing sometimes, but if you're a non-vulnerable over-18, this does sound very much open to abuse by malicious people. I still don't see how the police could categorically write it off as non-malicious. Unless they were immobile/vulnerable and/or lived some distance away (in which case their lives wouldn't cross on a daily basis with the person in question anyway), I would 100% treat it as malicious if somebody reported a person as missing without even trying to visit their usual home or call their number(s) first. That's what the police did and located the OP instantly.

This could give any controlling abuser the licence to report you if you aren't doing what they want or expect you to do at any time. After all, 'missing' is a very subjective (and potentially arrogant) viewpoint. I haven't seen Moira Stuart on the telly for a while, but it wouldn't occur to me to report her as missing - as she is an autonomous adult living her own life that in no way needs to be validated by MY knowledge of what she's doing.

Wasn't there a thread some time ago where the OP had been reported as deceased and had to go through quite a time of it to get the authorities to finally accept that this breathing, moving, talking person wasn't actually dead?

I would be thinking about DP's daughter (if she's old enough) or her mother before anyone else.

Re my comment on the children, I thought perhaps the malicious report mentioned the children, otherwise the police wouldn’t want to disturb them.

Wasn't there a thread some time ago where the OP had been reported as deceased

.??

Hope you're ok op. My gran quite often calls the police for one thing and another. Once DH went away for work and she got muddled, called the police to say we had both gone away and left the kids by themselves. They woke me at 3am. I was really shaken by it, I know how you feel. They wouldn't confirm who it was when I asked but sort of laughed when I said her name.
She phoned to report her neighbour missing once because his work van wasn't outside. It was in the garage for repairs.
Do you have any elderly confused people around?

Police who knocked on our door clearly on had this guy's name, DH name and address and fact this guy was supposed to be here.

It was only after it was clear no one was here, and we were clearly trying to be helpful but didn’t seem to know the guy that they radioed for more information and it quickly became clear how sketchy the information was.

I wonder if checking on other people in the house was just routine practise rather than meaning anything was being said about the children.

I'd probably get in touch with friends and family today Lizzielocket see if any of them have any idea what could have happened - maybe someone's just got confused.

Wow, I didn’t expect so many replies!

To answer a few questions, I’m not on social media neither is DP. His ex and I talk but only when necessary, no bad feeling between us we just don’t need to contact each other. She is in a new relationship of her own and is quite happy. DP’s DD makes her own contact arrangements with us. I get on with her well, she’s a quiet and studious young woman, this sort of prank wouldn’t cross her mind. She’s very sweet.

My friend has his own home literally 2 roads away and has been there for me many times in the past as I have for him, he’s single and very happily so, almost asexual and can be quite eccentric at times, he has never shown any stalkerish tendencies though. It’s a very, very old friendship that has never been sexual.

The police only popped their head round DC’s bedroom door, apparently this is usual and not out of the ordinary on a welfare check.

I’ve spoken briefly to my parents who are equally as baffled and a little worried.

The reason I won’t tell DP while he is away is that it will play on his mind and worry him
quite a lot, I don’t want to do that to him, he deserves a break as he has been working really hard. As a pp said I would only tell him something worrying if it was an absolute emergency.

Seriously considering staying at my parents tonight.

I won’t be asking for an investigation, I don’t want the police wasting more time on something that is worrying but in the grand scheme quite trivial.

Really busy at work, will check back in soon and read properly.

I have a friend, who, when depressed just stays in her house, doesn't answer the phone unless she knows who is calling and doesn't answer her door.

She didn't answer the door one day, not realising it was the police, so the PC went and got the, I don't know the name, mini battering ram thing.

Regardless of your reason for doing so, I detest the assumption that somebody at home should be expected to stop whatever they're doing and answer the door if an unsolicited caller 'summons' them by knocking or ringing the bell.

You could be depressed, ill, having a bath, going to the toilet, feeding/changing/comforting a baby, having sex, working from home, be right in the middle of something and concentrating - or just be having a duvet day, or wanting peace and privacy in your own home for any reason. Your home is not a public place.

Fair enough if it's an arrest - although I recall a case from some time ago when the police bashed down the door of an innocent neighbour of the suspected criminal without checking the address properly, had their official emergency call-out company secure it and replace it with something ugly at great expense, and then had the householder billed, refusing to pay themselves for the deliberate damage that they'd caused.

The police are increasingly being used to bully people by malicious persons, it is unfortunate but is quite common now.

If someone is reported missing or they have concerns, they will check their home first. This is quite normal.

Sorry to say I also know someone who had their door broken down, they didn’t even give her time to answer it really. They had the wrong address, they were looking for a dealer. They refused to pay for the damage. They said she should have got to the door earlier.

I'm not sure it is trivial. I don't think you can make that assumption unless you know why you were reported missing.

I wonder why the anonymity of the person who reported you as missing trumps your right not to feel confused and anxious. I suspect the key to your understanding what's going on is knowing who reported you.

Why do they get to remain anonymous? Is that laid down in law? If I really wanted to pursue this, I think I'd spend half an hour with a solicitor to find out whether there were grounds for insisting I was told who'd reported me.

The police might well be in the right telling you they have a right to anonymity but 'd like to know what actual law says.