Stephen Phillips case: Police made 'wrong decisions'

"Wrong decisions" were made in an inquiry over the death of a man originally thought to have died after drinking, police have admitted.

Officers at first did not treat Stephen Phillips's death as suspicious after he was found in his Wolverhampton flat.

His family became suspicious when they found two mobile phones were missing.

Tests proved he had been struck before he fell. Lewis Thornton, 24, has been jailed for 10 years for Mr Phillips' manslaughter and robbery.

Mr Phillips, aged, 54 and a father of six, died from a head injury on 11 March 2015 at his home in Dudley Road, Blakenhall.

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He had been punched in the head in a nearby street, causing him to fracture his skull as he fell. He managed to walk back to his flat but died from his head injury and internal bleeding.

The court heard his death was at first treated by police as non-suspicious, as it was thought he had fallen at home after drinking.

But his family went back to the police when they realised his phones were missing.

"We rang the police but we were told we would have to wait for the post-mortem," his partner, Tina Fury, said.

"So we were out questioning everyone on the Dudley Road."

Eventually, a forensic post-mortem test, a week after the death, revealed the injuries.

Det Insp Justin Spanner said he thought it was fair to say that at the beginning of the case some wrong decisions were made, but with "the best intentions".

"We quickly learnt from the medical evidence that in fact internally the wounds to Stephen were greater than we thought and when we put that alongside the acknowledgment two mobile phones had gone missing, we quickly realised that this was a homicide," he said.