A HARLOW police officer has expressed his frustration at a lack of facilities for people suffering from poor mental health.

PC Josh Haase has won a lot of praise over the last year for his high profile use of Twitter.

But he is not averse to highlighting controversial subjects.

If a mentally vulnerable person comes to the attention of the police then there should be in place a “triage system”, in other words, the person becomes the focus of the health service rathe than the criminal justice system.

But earlier this week, it looked like there wasn’t any places and so the person with PC Haase had to be placed in a police cell.

PC Haase said: “Male with mental health issues being housed in #Harlow custody now after being sectioned as no suites available in the county #unacceptable”.

He won praise from Harlow mental health ambassador, cllr Ian Beckett. He said: “Absolutely unacceptable and at least EssexPolicerecognise it. Ultimately safety of individual paramount but solutions needed #MentalHealth”.

Later on we spoke to Essex Police. A spokesperson said: “Every day Essex Police deals with around 100 incidents involving mental health, over 5,000 cases a year. Many of those incidents involve no crime being committed but, as an emergency service, our job is to keep people safe and prevent harm to individuals or other people.

“Police officers can remove a person suffering mental health crisis to a place of safety as defined by Section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Usually that place of safety is a mental health treatment unit but if no places are available detention in police stations can be used in exceptional circumstances and as a last resort. We actively work with our partner agencies to ensure we can identify the best response for those experiencing mental health crises.

“In 2015/16 we detained people in police custody on 112 occasions, compared to 175 occasions in 2013/14”.