Reporting a "body" to authorities

[memberofthewedding]

You are out in a remote place and you come across what appears to be a dead person. Do you:-

#1 call the police and await their arrival or leave full contact details

#2 call police later from phone box or burner phone. You are concerned that someone may be awaiting news of the dead person but dont want to get personally involved with police/courts/witness statements/media frenzy

#3 walk away and let someone else find it - for similar reasons to #2

No Ive never found a body but I do know of a couple who did so, but under very different circumstances. They kept quiet about it.

I would seriously rethink having anything to do with someone capable of this and would report to police they were on the scene first. Shocked anyone could walk away from a body in any circumstances in this country.

Phone police and wait an appropriate distance away until they arrived and/or follow their instructions.

1. Have found a body and went for 1 instinctively. Am quite shocked anyone would do anything else and would think anyone who went for 2 or 3 likely to be either weird or dodgy.

@memberofthewedding

I would probably choose #2 because I despise the media and certainly dont want to be involved with these gouls.

When did you last see any sort of publicity around someone who found a body?

When DH did he was 'a member of the public' in any press reports, which came from the police's press statement.

The only people who knew that the member of the public was him, was DH, me and his boss (because it made him late for work).

I did find a dead body once - one route on my walk to work is along the towpath and I saw someone who appeared to be sleeping - there are a number of people who sleep rough there, but he was completely still and silent and his eyes were open.

As it was close to work I ran into work and called the police and an ambulance from there, but gave my details.

The poor chap had died of a drug overdose and exposure overnight. I don't know why no one else called the police but I had to do a written statement for the inquest.

#2 would sound incredibly suspicious.

#1 would be the most decent and rational

number 1
also to protect others from seeing the body.

(been there, done that, no issues with confidentiality)

They obviously didn't keep that too quiet, you know and now we all know. Why would you keep it quiet, the person is someones relative and could have been reported missing..

1 of course. Because how often do you come across bodies? How often have been say in a accident and actually had to give evidence? Its very rare.

I phoned 999 when someone was hit about 40 mph and flung onto the pavement. Even then I was wasnt asked to evidence. The people Watson his side of the road at the time giving him CPR I presume did that.

A family friend's dog found the body of a murder victim when walking one morning, and it was a very high profile distressing case.

They had the sense to not get too close, and went to the closest house to phone the Police (was in the days before mobiles). They were very deeply scarred by it though, sadly and have never walked the dog along that route again or on their own.

My friends reported a dead body on the landing of the flats they'd just moved into. The police came to take statements and after checking the corpse, explained "That's not a dead body, that's your neighbour"! Apparently he liked his drink.