West Yorkshire Police has taken action to improve the way it responds to incidents, following the death of a Bradford soldier.

Hugh Cunningham, 29, a corporal in the Royal Engineers, was found hanged, at his home in Bowling Hall Road, East Bowling, on August 20 last year.

An inquest last month concluded he had taken his own life.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission carried out an investigation into how police responded to concerns for Mr Cunningham’s welfare before he was found dead.

Yesterday the IPCC said its investigation had shown that West Yorkshire Police’s response “was not the best it could be”.

But IPCC Commissioner Nicholas Long said the individual decision making of staff was understandable given the information at their disposal.

Mr Long said: “Resources were available at pertinent times, but the lack of a strategic overview meant staff were unaware of this during a busy period in which they were dealing with some serious incidents.

“Individuals cannot be blamed for this and I am pleased to see West Yorkshire Police has learned from this and taken action to address the issue.

“I must stress that there is no evidence to suggest a more timely police response would have led to a different outcome. It cannot be said with any certainty that a quicker response would have resulted in either Mr Cunningham’s death being prevented, or his body found sooner.”

The investigation established that Mr Cunningham’s sister contacted police at 9.33pm on August 19. She suggested an address where he might be but it proved to be incorrect.

At 12.27am on August 20, a friend of Mr Cunningham made a 999 call to police after failing to get any response from his home. He was advised not to force entry and told the call would be graded as needing a priority response, where an officer attends within an hour.

He waited outside the house until 3am and then went home. A second sister of Mr Cunningham then contacted police and an officer was despatched, but had to be diverted to a firearms incident. At 4.37am another officer was sent to Mr Cunningham’s house but was unable to gain entry and was again diverted to another incident.

An officer finally forced entry and found Mr Cunningham’s body at 10.05am – more than 12 hours after his sister first contacted police.

The IPCC concluded there was no supervision to ensure resources were identified, deployed and controlled in a timely manner. As a result opportunities were missed to resolve the incident. A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “We welcome the IPCC’s findings that individual officers and staff acted appropriately in what is a tragic case. This happened on a particularly busy night, with officers called to several serious incidents including outbreaks of disorder in the Holme Wood area.

“Officers met Mr Cunningham’s family shortly after their brother’s death to express their sincere condolences and undertook to review the Force’s response to their calls.

“A new post has been created to ensure calls are graded correctly and responded to.

“However, as the report concludes, there is no evidence to suggest that a more timely police response would have led to a different outcome.”