Sheriff Principal Miller

Jamie Forbes, 37, was held captive and tortured for two days at Elphinstone Court in January 2024 before falling from a 12th-floor window.

A fatal accident inquiry heard that call handler Callum Scott misrecorded information from caller Gail Thomson, who believed the screams were coming from about six floors below the top of the 18-storey building. Scott recorded them as coming from six to eight floors up.

Police officers searched the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth floors but found no one in distress.

Sheriff Principal Andrew Miller said Forbes’s death might realistically have been prevented and called for new guidance for call handlers.

Lee Smith was jailed for eight years in December 2024 after admitting culpable homicide. Police Scotland said it was reviewing procedures for calls concerning people at risk.

Sheriff Principal Miller identified a number of precautions which realistically may have resulted in the death being avoided. 

The determination states:

• Information provided during 999 call could have accurately noted
• An attempt could have been made to contact the caller in order to confirm the information she had provided
• A sergeant could have confirmed what witnesses were being referred to when speaking to officers at the scene, before they were stood down
• Two officers at the scene could have acted on information they received from workmen that cries heard earlier had come from the upper floors.

He made two recommendations for the chief constable of Police Scotland, which “might realistically prevent other deaths in similar circumstances”.

He concluded: “I wish to join with all of the other participants in the inquiry in expressing the court’s condolences to Mr Forbes’s family, who have suffered the untimely loss of Mr Forbes in these most tragic and distressing circumstances.”