Star date: 22nd December 2017

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO FIND DETAILS OF HOMELESS DEATHS – IS THERE A COVER UP?

"I could tell just by the colour of his skin and his face there there was something drastically wrong...I just thought 'He's gone, he's dead'..." Pat, outreach worker

On Sunday night, Pat, a voluntary outreach worker with Salford Manchester Street Support, was convinced that a man she found lying lifeless in a doorway in Piccadilly, Manchester, had died in the cold. The subsequent post went viral on social media, as the organisation was told by Greater Manchester Police to take it down.

Did the man die? Did he survive? It's almost impossible for the press or anyone else to find out. Is there a cover up going on?

Full details here...

Last Sunday, around 7:30pm, Pat, a voluntary outreach worker for Salford Manchester Street Support, was walking through Piccadilly in Manchester checking on homeless people sleeping in doorways to see if they were ok as the temperature dropped.

"You just do it naturally" she explains "As I was going through town I'd seen two people in the doorway next to McDonald's, and in the next doorway was a guy who wasn't sleeping; I knew that because of the way he lay and I could tell just by the colour of his skin and his face there was something drastically wrong...

"I just thought 'He's gone, he's dead', and then the guy in front of me stopped at the same time as I did" she recalls "He reached down into the doorway...I had to look away. I kept looking back, waiting for a breath or a pulse, anything.

"An ambulance came and took him away but I didn't speak to the guy, so didn't know whether he had managed to get him breathing or not" Pat adds "But to me it was too late, it looked like he'd gone..."

Salford Manchester Street Support posted an account of what had happened, only to be messaged by a member of Greater Manchester Police, telling them to take it down, to stop 'rumours' spreading.

Meanwhile, GMP social media moved to dispel the 'rumour'... "We are aware of social media posts saying a 'homeless' man was found dead in Piccadilly last night. We are aware of a man found collapsed in that area on Friday night, who remains in a poorly condition in hospital, but we are not aware of any deaths over the weekend..."

The Salford Star spoke to a very distraught Pat the day after the incident. She is trained to spot the signs of someone collapsed through Spice, and she was convinced that this was no overdose. So what happened to the bloke and is he, to put it horribly bluntly, dead or alive?

The North West Ambulance Service confirmed to the Salford Star that the man was picked up on Sunday night and taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) but wouldn't give any more details.

The Star also contacted Greater Manchester Police press office which only responded yesterday stating "Looking on our logs there isn't anything that corresponds with this", which is hardly a definitive answer.

Meanwhile, despite calls to the MRI press office, the Star has still not received any response, apart from that they are 'trying to find out'.

How difficult can it be for all parties to say whether this guy found in Piccadilly is dead or alive? The Salford Star also heard last week that two different homeless people had died out in the cold in Manchester. Again, it was almost impossible to get any definitive answers, with GMP asking for times and places of the incidents, and the hospitals asking for dates of birth and names.

As far as the Salford Star can ascertain, there are no definitive figures on street homeless deaths in Greater Manchester...

"I think it's a cover up" says Pat "I think there's an order from the Government, or police or councils, whoever, not to report the numbers of people dying. They don't want people to know how many people are dying on the street.

"Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, is saying 'It's ok we're going to do something about it', so the public don't do anything, and think these people are alright; but they're not" she adds "He isn't doing anything to help them. Six people sleeping in a fire station? We know twenty on the streets who we see regularly, and lots of others who are drifting in and out of the city centre."

Angela Barratt, from Salford Manchester Street Support, who has just won an Award from Salford CVS for her work with the homeless, insists: "We need to know who these people are who have died. It's not fair. They're someone's children at the end of the day.

"No matter how much training you have, it's heartbreaking" she adds "I've been to a few funerals of homeless people and there's only been me there. Why should they have to die on the streets in 2017, in one of the richest countries in the world? This is Dark Age Britain."

Meanwhile, Pat, who is still clearly upset, and still bereft of proper answers as to what happened to the homeless guy lying lifeless in the Piccadilly doorway, is also angry...

"How many more?" she asks "After Universal Credit is rolled out there will be more evictions and where will those people end up? The problem is going to be ten times worse very soon..."

In the meantime, it should not be beyond the bounds of GM Mayor, Andy Burnham, and his Lead for Homelessness, Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, to produce figures, made available to the public, of how many homeless people have died on the streets of Greater Manchester.

Until this happens, there will continue to be confusion, rumours and allegations of a cover up...

See also previous Salford Star article on five demands to GM Mayor, Andy Burnham, from the squat opposite Manchester Town Hall – click here