999 call during murder of MMU lecturer’s family “badly handled”

The phone call to police during the murder of Manchester Metropolitan Lecturer Jifeng Ding and his family was “badly handled” according to an independent police report about the tragedy.

Ding, his wife Helen and their two teenage children were all found stabbed to death at their home in Northampton on the weekend of the 1^st May last year. It is believed that Ding’s daughter made a 999 phone call on her mobile at the time of the murder.

According to the police report screaming was heard on the call and then it was abandoned. Protocol dictates that abandoned screaming should result in an immediate police response, which did not happen. An incorrect result on the origin of the phone call also led to further wasted time.

Northamptonshire police said that it was “unlikely the lives of the Ding family could have been saved but there was a possibility the main suspect, Anxiang Du, could have been at the address if the call had been correctly handled and officers dispatched.”

Northamptonshire police said that it was “unlikely the lives of the Ding family could have been saved but there was a possibility the main suspect, Anxiang Du, could have been at the address if the call had been correctly handled and officers dispatched.”