Overview
- Officers were called to Fisherman’s Walk on Friday 26 June over a concern for welfare and began engaging with a man who then fell roughly 100 feet and was later confirmed dead at the scene.
- Multiple emergency services including an air ambulance, ambulance crews, coastguard and fire and rescue teams established a large cordon and evacuated parts of the beach to manage the incident and recovery.
- Dorset Police said the death is not being treated as suspicious and that the force has self‑referred the episode of officer contact to the IOPC as standard practice when police are present during a death.
- Eyewitnesses described the event as traumatic with people screaming and distressed onlookers, and police urged the public not to share photos or videos from the scene; the casualty has not been publicly identified.
- The IOPC will independently examine police contact and the force will prepare a file for the coroner, a process that can include witness statements, officer accounts and medical and scene evidence.