Dark Shadow...Someone posted way back that police cars had been seen at the house earlier that night possibly only a rumour though...but could it have been possible they may have received an 000 call and were responding to it and given an excuse of some kind that all was right and then next morning he reported Allison missing and all alarm bells went off with the QPS hence making it an immediate crime scene...just wondering if you would see this as a possibility...
Sorry for the late reply, Elspeth.
Police will most definitely investigate an incident if they suspect a person is in physical danger. This decision is completely at their discretion, however, they must act on reasonable suspicion. (e.g, if they suspect domestic violence, they will check to see that all members of the household are accounted for and safe).
If they feel there is no cause for suspicion (i.e, both members of a couple come to the door, they can see the kids sitting watching telly in their p.j's, all look well, explain the phone call was a complete accident, or neighbours hold a grudge for some reason etc.) then they are not obliged to investigate further.
As for alarm bells the next morning, in a similar scenario? Well, the alarm bells would be deafening if there were suspicions of DV or similar the night before, IMO..
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I am fairly certain that there would also be alarm bells if there was an uninvestigated call-out the night before, particularly if the initial call-out was due to a report of screams heard by neighbours or similar.
Also, as i mentioned in a previous post, legislation has changed since the Daniel Morcombe case. It is now a mandatory immediate response to a missing person report if QPS are made aware that the missing person is a youth, has a mental illness (including depression) or is an elderly citizen.
HTH