200 failed by the system Special investigation: Police cells and

Ayoung plasterer and father, Martin Middleton, was threatening to kill himself when the police were called to his flat in the Cross Gates area of Leeds. They arrested him for his own safety under the Mental Health Act, but an hour later he was released. The next day he was found hanged at his flat.

Philip Edmondson was just 30 when he threatened to jump from the window of his flat in Wellington, Somerset, in September last year. Again police were called, and he was held under section 136 of the Mental Health Act for his own safety. Twelve hours or so later he was released after being examined by a doctor and a psychiatrist. Two hours after his release Mr Edmondson walked in front of a train in Taunton and was killed instantly.

The families behind these two tragic situations will receive some answers when inquests open into the cases over the next two months. But every year there are up to 200 such stories. Stories of devastated families and the wasted lives of vulnerable people who take their own lives within two days of leaving police custody.

Such is the concern that the Independent Police Complaints Commission has mounted a major investigation into the use of police cells to hold people with mental health problems. Under the law, when police are forced to arrest mentally ill people, often for minor offences or because they are a danger to themselves, they have to take them to a "place of safety". This should be a hospital or psychiatric ward, or, as a last resort, a police cell.

Initial findings from the IPCC reveal, however, that 11,500 people a year - 31 a day - are held in police cells for up to 18 hours at a time. This is believed to be an underestimate because not all forces report all cases. As many as 200 a year are thought to kill themselves within 48 hours of their release.

Mental health organisations argue that police do not have the training to care for mentally ill people, and the police say it takes up their time and resources to do a job which is not in their remit. Both agree that a police cell is "inappropriate" for the care of vulnerable people.

Whether the experience of being in a cell directly leads to the suicide, or whether the person is likely to commit suicide anyway is unknown. Campaigners argue that, either way, the vulnerable person is being failed by the system.

Margaret Edwards, head of strategy at the mental health charity Sane, says that for seriously vulnerable people the experience of being in a police cell may be a decisive factor that tips them into suicide.

"The disturbingly high numbers of people committing suicide following release from custody underlines the need for the police and mental health services to work together to ensure that those at risk receive specialised assessment and have somewhere to go that does not leave them unsupported," she says.

Her view is backed up by Jane Harris, head of strategy at the campaign group Rethink, who adds that being in police cells can be the "straw that breaks the camel's back".

Mind is also concerned. Anna Bird, of the charity, says: "We can't emphasise enough that people should be held in police cells only in an emergency."

Anna Tapsell, chair of Lambeth's Police Community Consultative Group as well as a mental health manager and non-executive director of Guy's and St Thomas's hospital, explains the problems police face in the inner-London borough. "It is a huge issue in Lambeth," she says. "We have two large psychiatric hospitals and a transient population. So a lot of people are picked up here. Police cells are supposed to be a place of safety, but they are not safe at all. It is a real problem for the police. They have to assign an officer to do suicide watch when they are not trained. The health service is not picking up the problem."

Inspector Peter O' Donnelly, the mental health liaison officer for Lambeth, agrees. "The bottom line is there are not enough places to take people," he says. "We all agree a police station is not the place these people should be in. But it's unavoidable sometimes. Social services and the health service do their best, but they are understaffed. For them it's like digging a hole in water.

"People are coming out, back into the community, but they don't take their medication and they're not fully supported. But in the last year the police and psychiatric hospitals have been talking to each other more and things have really improved."

One chief inspector in the north of England, who asked not to be named, says that 99 per cent of the time mental health patients arrested under section 136 were not accepted at accident and emergency units.

"If we are called to a conflict management there are often people in need of support," he says. "They may be on a roof, threatening to throw themselves off. So, under the Mental Health Act, we have to arrest them and they have to be assessed. They are not necessarily suicidal. They may just have reached a crisis in their lives.