Any person who is thought to have disappeared deliberately. Find Out More

By Terrain

	Male	Female	Other	Total
Crag / Broken Ground	53	14	1	68
Farmland	286	133	3	422
Moorland / Upland	133	41	5	180
Not Specified	52	25	3	80
Plantation (dense)	89	25	2	116
Urban	240	139	15	396
Water Margin	114	37	4	156
Woodland / Parkland	234	74	2	310
Total:	1201	488	35	1728

The four characteristics shown in table 16 come from an analysis of the text fields of reports submitted via the data collection system. These were the characteristics of the missing person that were most frequently mentioned. They are not mutually exclusive, so for example a missing person could have been reported as having threatened to commit suicide as well as having a history of previous threats.

All this is dependent entirely on what the individual doing the reporting felt was worth mentioning. This should be borne in mind when considering the conclusions that we have drawn about the behaviour of missing despondents with these characteristics. It is worth noting, however, that 69% of the reports submitted for missing despondents included a reference to at least one of them, which leads us to suspect that where a characteristic was present then it was highly likely to have been reported.

By Outcome

	n	%
None	608	35.2%
Unknown	478	27.7%
Fatality	421	24.4%
Serious Injury	112	6.5%
Minor Injury	109	6.3%

Despondents were significantly different from all the other categories in the study. Overall, significantly fewer despondents were found unhurt, and significantly more were either found injured or not found at all. The percentages varied with the terrain and, in the case of farmland, by gender. The results for plantations and woodland were similar, and were combined for ease of reporting

By Location Found

All Terrains

	n
Habitation	349
Not Found	448
Not Found	448
Open Ground	129
Travel Aid	234
Travel Aid	234
Trees	321
Trees	321

Crag / Broken Ground

	n
Habitation	6
Not Found	15
Not Found	15
Open Ground	16
Travel Aid	8
Travel Aid	8
Trees	15
Trees	15

Farmland

	n
Habitation	102
Not Found	90
Not Found	90
Open Ground	34
Travel Aid	77
Travel Aid	77
Trees	62
Trees	62

Moorland / Upland

	n
Habitation	24
Not Found	32
Not Found	32
Open Ground	41
Travel Aid	31
Travel Aid	31
Trees	27
Trees	27

Not Specified

	n
Habitation	6
Not Found	51
Not Found	51
Open Ground	4
Travel Aid	9
Travel Aid	9
Trees	5
Trees	5

Plantation (dense)

	n
Habitation	13
Not Found	31
Not Found	31
Open Ground	2
Travel Aid	9
Travel Aid	9
Trees	60
Trees	60

Urban

	n
Habitation	141
Not Found	105
Not Found	105
Open Ground	18
Travel Aid	53
Travel Aid	53
Trees	24
Trees	24

Water Margin

	n
Habitation	17
Not Found	48
Not Found	48
Open Ground	2
Travel Aid	7
Travel Aid	7
Trees	7
Trees	7

Woodland / Parkland

	n
Habitation	40
Not Found	76
Not Found	76
Open Ground	12
Travel Aid	40
Travel Aid	40
Trees	121
Trees	121

Significant differences were found between the different types of terrain, and there was a gender difference in farmland. As before, incidents in plantations and woodland have been combined.

The following additional information was provided with regard to four incidents for which the location was reported as ‘open ground’: at a high vantage point overlooking the valley, close to a footpath, in a quarry, in the hospital grounds.

Significant locations

In many of the reports submitted to the system (15% of female despondents and 14% of male despondents) there are references to the missing person being found in a location that is significant to them in some way, either because it is a local beauty spot or viewpoint, or they have memories associated with the place (‘… went there regularly with the family …’) or they often visited it (‘… on the route that he used to take the dog for a walk …’).

Significant locations are linked in particular to male fatalities. There is no significant difference between the likelihood of a fatality when the indication is that a missing female despondent is in a location of this sort compared with any other location.

If there are strong indicators to suggest that a missing male has headed for such a location then it is highly likely that they will be found dead; 62% of missing male
despondents found in these places are found dead, compared with 29% who are found in other locations. These are significantly different. If the missing male despondent has not threatened suicide then the fatality rate increases to 70% if they are found in a location of this kind. Again, this is a statistically significant result.

Distance From IPP (Km)

osmap

All Distances

10%	0 Km
20%	0 Km
30%	0 Km
40%	0 Km
50%	0.3 Km
60%	0.8 Km
70%	1 Km
80%	2 Km
90%	5.5 Km
100%	300 Km

The distances travelled by despondents were significantly different to the distances travelled by all the other categories in that a greater proportion of depondents was found nearer to the IPP (36% of despondents were found within 0.5 km of the IPP compared to 25% of the other categories); terrain and gender made no significant difference to the distances despondents travelled.