The family of a company director who died after being restrained on a street by police while suffering acute behavioural disorder (ABD) have called for more training to be given on how to deal with people experiencing such a crisis.

Doug Oak, 35, was restrained by officers with handcuffs and leg straps after being spotted behaving erratically and appearing terrified outside his parents’ home in Poole, Dorset.

An inquest jury in Bournemouth heard that paramedics did not arrive until around an hour after a neighbour called 999, amid confusion in the police and ambulance control rooms over what ABD was. Oak suffered a cardiac arrest and died the next day.

Dorset police have agreed to pay damages to Oak’s family, though the force has not accepted liability for his death.

The senior coroner, Rachel Griffin, is to issue a report highlighting the need for better training and guidance around ABD to help prevent further deaths.

Jurors heard that while frontline police officers in Dorset were trained to recognise ABD, previously known as excited delirium, staff in the police and ambulance control rooms had not received training.

Oak’s parents, Christine and John, said they felt opportunities had been missed to save their son and the five-week inquest had highlighted gaps in training and breakdowns in communication.

John Oak said: “These people have been careless with people’s lives … In this case we’re paying the price and so is Doug. That’s really disappointing.”

The Oaks said they did not blame individuals but said the system had let their son down and stopped him getting the help he needed.

Christine Oak said: “There were missed opportunities here. It could so easily have turned out differently. We hope this will lead to urgent changes. We know that Douglas would want this too. He is missed every single day.”

Oak was described by his family as popular, clever, kind and non-confrontational but the jury heard he had some problems with alcohol and cocaine and had spent a short time in rehab.

He had taken cocaine before the emergency and at around 3.30pm on 11 April 2017 neighbours heard him shouting for help outside his parents’ house while they were on holiday in Portugal.

Oak was barefoot and standing in the middle of the road, appearing distressed and frightened of going near the hedges, gates and shadows. He was heard to say: “Can’t you see them? They’re in the shadows trying to kill me.”

A neighbour called 999 at 4.09pm and told the police operator Oak was having a “massive paranoid attack running around in the road”.

At around 4.20pm two police officers arrived. They requested an ambulance and moved Oak to a grass verge where they restrained him.

South Western ambulance service was alerted at 4.35pm - about 25 minutes after the original call. There was confusion over what ABD was and the response was only graded “category three”.

An ambulance arrived at around 5.15pm. Oak was taken to Poole general hospital but he never regained consciousness and died the following day with his family by his side.

There have been a number of high-profile deaths associated with ABD following restraint by police, including that of Olaseni Lewis, 23, from south London. A jury in May 2017 identified a litany of failures by both police and medical staff that contributed to Lewis’s death.

Following an inquest in 2015 on Kingsley Burrell, who died after being restrained in Birmingham, the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives said (pdf) a national protocol was being prepared on how to manage ABD patients before they reached hospital.

Gus Silverman of Irwin Mitchell, who represented the family, said after the hearing: “National ambulance and policing organisations should now work together as a matter of urgency to ensure that people displaying symptoms of ABD no longer face death as the result of restraint.”

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), identified learning for three members of police call-handling staff around their performance when handling the initial 999 call and the telephone contact between the police and ambulance control rooms.

Dorset’s deputy chief constable, David Lewis, said: “Although there was no finding at the inquest of any failures by Dorset police that could have caused or contributed to Douglas’s death, since the incident we have been considering very carefully whether there is any learning for our organisation.”

He said the learning points they had taken on board “included training on awareness of ABD for all control room staff and discussions with our ambulance counterparts”.

A spokesperson from South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust said: “At the time of Doug’s tragic death SWASFT staff fully complied with the guidance available at the time of the incident. Since then, and while the trust awaits national guidance on ABD specifically, implementation of comprehensive training has been put in place for all control and frontline staff.

“We will carefully consider the recommendations the coroner has made to understand if there is any additional learning we can take from this sad incident.”