A coroner’s legal deadline has now passed. Neither the management company nor the shopping centre has made any public response. And the centre’s own website still tells visitors their car parks are monitored around the clock.
That is where things stand, seven months after a man died at Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre in Gillingham and a formal inquest concluded that a working security alarm was almost certainly missed because nobody could hear it.
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The Emergency at Hempstead Valley, 17 August 2025
Shortly after 10am on Sunday, 17 August 2025, emergency services were called to the multi-storey car park at Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre in Gillingham, Kent.
At least two ambulances and two police cars arrived at the site near the M&S entrance. The fire service also attended to assist paramedics. A member of the centre’s own security team administered CPR. Paramedics were on scene within ten minutes.
At 10:42am, a paramedic confirmed the death of one person at the scene.
That person was Stephen Paul Page, 70, from Faversham.
Stephen Page
Page was a retired property manager. He lived on Preston Avenue in Faversham with his wife, Jane. The couple had two adult sons.
In the 18 months before his death, he had been living with a bladder cancer diagnosis and recurring urinary tract infections. Nine days before 17 August, he visited his GP complaining of feeling very low. He left with a prescription for anti-depressants.
On the morning of the incident, he drove alone from Faversham to Gillingham. The shopping centre’s CCTV picked him up before the incident. There was nothing on his phone or in his car to indicate his intentions. His family later found an undated farewell message at his home.
What the Inquest Found
The coroner for Kent and Medway, Ian Potter, opened an investigation on 19 August 2025. The inquest was heard at Maidstone Coroner’s Court on 17 December 2025.
A post-mortem confirmed the medical cause of death as:
- Ascending Aortic Wall Dissection
- Haemothorax
- Neck Fracture
There were no traces of drugs or alcohol in his system.
Kent Police interviewed witnesses, including a shopper who saw Page fall from the car park structure. Officers reviewed the full CCTV footage. Coroner Potter concluded no third party was involved.
Inquest conclusion: Suicide.
The Alarm Nobody Heard
The inquest’s most significant finding had nothing to do with what happened in the open air of the car park. It came from inside the security control room.
Hempstead Valley has an electronic sensor system in place across its car parking structure. When triggered, the system moves the nearest CCTV camera to the activation point automatically. A written submission to the inquest from a senior member of staff at MAPP, the company that provides security management at Hempstead Valley, set out exactly how the alert works:
“When the sensor beam is broken, the corresponding CCTV camera automatically moves to the activation point and displays a visual alert marked ‘Alarm’. The camera remains focused on the area to allow for monitoring if an operator is present.”
The sensor triggered on the morning of 17 August 2025. The system worked as designed. The alert appeared on screen.
It was not acted on.
Kent Police’s investigating officer stated in their report to the inquest: “This ‘alarm’ is visual only and displays for a few seconds. Due to the number of screens, this could have been easily missed by the CCTV operator.”
Coroner Ian Potter’s response was measured but direct. He confirmed the system had no technical fault that morning and there was no evidence of a delayed response in this specific case. However, he put his concern plainly:
“It is not difficult to envisage (particularly given that there is no audible alarm) a situation in which a triggering of the ‘alarm’ could be missed and an opportunity for staff to intervene being lost.”
Had a member of staff spotted the alert in time, both security and cleaning personnel would have been dispatched by radio immediately.
A Formal Legal Warning
On 18 December 2025, one day after the inquest concluded, Coroner Potter issued a Prevention of Future Deaths report under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. These reports carry a statutory duty to respond, and are sent when a coroner believes that without action, similar deaths are likely to occur.
The report, reference 2026-0046, was directed at two recipients:
| Recipient | Address |
|---|---|
| MAPP (Property Management) Ltd | 180 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5QZ |
| Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre | Gillingham, Kent, ME7 3PD |
MAPP is a national property management business with offices in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, and Newcastle. They are the company that provided written evidence to the inquest about the alarm system.
Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre has been owned by Sterling Property Ventures since June 2024, when the Birmingham-based firm acquired it as part of a ยฃ236 million portfolio deal from BlackRock, acting on behalf of British Airways Pensions Trustees. The centre spans 449,079 square feet across a 26.6-acre site and houses over 50 retailers, including Sainsbury’s, M&S, TK Maxx, Boots, JD, and Nando’s.
The coroner’s report required both parties to respond with details of action taken or planned. The legal deadline for that response was 12 February 2026.
The Deadline Passed. No Public Response.
Today is 10 March 2026. The 56-day legal window closed nearly four weeks ago.
As of publication, no response from MAPP or Hempstead Valley Shopping Centre appears on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website, where all Prevention of Future Deaths reports and their responses are required to be published.
Since January 2025, the Chief Coroner has published a public list of organisations that fail to respond to these reports within the required timeframe. She has called it a “Badge of Dishonour.”
Neither MAPP nor the shopping centre’s owners have issued any public statement about the coroner’s findings, the recommendation to install an audible alarm, or whether any changes have been made to the security system at the Gillingham site.
What the Centre Tells Shoppers Today
Hempstead Valley’s Centre Facilities page currently reads:
“We have CCTV that has been installed throughout the centre and our car parks. This is monitored 24/7 by our highly trained security staff.”
The centre also holds the Park Mark Safer Parking Award, a national accreditation scheme for car parks that meet recognised safety standards.
The inquest told a different story. MAPP’s own written evidence confirmed the visual alert only displays “to allow for monitoring if an operator is present.” Kent Police said it appears “for a few seconds” and could be “easily missed.” Coroner Ian Potter concluded there was a real and ongoing risk to future lives because of it.
The page on the Hempstead Valley website has not been updated since the inquest findings were published. The award still features on the site.
The question of what has actually changed inside that security control room since 17 August 2025 remains, as of today, publicly unanswered.
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