If they let him go the scumbag (can I say this about a thief?) probably would've killed someone else later on and the police would again get the blame. Try to contain him and with the unfortunate consequence and it's their fault. Surely we cannot blame anyone that tries to do the right thing and it goes wrong. The blame here lies with the dross that stole the car and thought it was OK to risk everyone's life in a car chase. Or am I mising something and it's not their fault - it's society to blame etc?
Just how much do you actually dislike 'the police' Bystander? I'm convinced you blog the way you do just to get a rise sometimes.
My sympathies lie with the family of the dead man and the officers who had to deal with the aftermath which was caused 100% by the scumbag who decided to steal the car and then not stop when required to do so.
How many idiots did you let free this week with this woolly thinking?
No wonder we are losing control of the streets- can't even enforce litter laws. What would you have done with her- little slap on the srist and no separate penalty?
Let's get one thing straight - I have made no criticism at all of the officers involved on the ground, and I am quite sure that they have had and are having a traumatic time, and I feel sympathy for them.
My point is that the management of this incident may not have been adequate or properly prioritised.
The death of an innocent passerby is too high a price to pay for apprehending a low-life car thief. If that makes me anti-police in anyone's view, then they are as wrong as can be.
If that photograph means what I think it means, then the problem was and is the lack of barriers against counterflow traffic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jer.../
Jersey_barrier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Con...te_step_barrier
Bystander I think you will find that all police chases are governed by ACPO policy and that to chase, stop etc is decided by the control room chief inspector. It seems in the circumstances that all possible safeguards were taken. I agree that it seems that the barriers were less than helpful in preventing this accident. I wonder if the driver of the stolen vehicle will be charged with causing death by dangerous driving? Or will CPS go for TWOC?
I wonder whether the car thief will be charged with causing death by dangerous driving. If he chose to carry on driving at high speed instead of stopping, and swerved, it seems as though the offence is made out.
Oh, and though I don't think Bystander is anti-police, I believe the police higher-ups acted properly here. This accident was a freak. In any case, if people can get away with car thefts simply by driving recklessly, it is hard to see that will make roads safer.
As Bystander says in his post, policing is all about priorities. As a police officer I know that to have a no pursuit policy would be nothing but a green light for criminals to make off in stolen cars.
It's easy to say 'they should have just let the helicopter follow', but helicopters don't stop stolen cars, they can only watch them.
At some point, a stolen car needs stopping. Going back to those priorities, a motorway is one of the better places to do this because all the traffic is moving in one direction and there are no pedestrians, cyclists or prams with babies in them in close proximity. You don't want the car getting back onto normal roads.
I'm glad to see that (for once) the IPCC has come out and backed the officers involved.
I feel for the dead man's family, and hope that the scumbag thief will pay for what he did.
Firstly, my sympathies to the family of the innocent man who lost his life, they must be devastated.
If as a police officer I KNEW that attempting to stop the male would result in the death of an innocent member of the public (or be so risky as this is likely) I would of course back off. I also think you'll find the vast majority of police officers think the same.
Pursuits these days are tightly regulated and the decision to stop would only have been reached after evalutating all possible options and determining that the level of risk was acceptable. Unfortunately in this case, something has went terribly wrong and an innocent man lost his life.
It sounds a freak accident which could not have been foreseen and as unfortunate as that might be, it does not mean that the decision to stop was wrong.
As stated above, police have to continue to be able to perform stops on suspects in cars when appropriate or it's carte-blanch for the criminals to go on a crime spree knowing they can simply hop in a car and never be caught!
There is one person I blame here, the criminal refusing to stop! Out of interest Bystander, what do you think would be an appropriate sentence for this male?
The decision to try to stop the stolen car is hard to judge, since we weren't there and don't know how the stolen car was being driven.
If it was being driven in an obviously dangerous fashion, then prompt intevention seems justified.
However, if the car was being reasonably driven and was being persued purely with the intent to capture the driver, it does at least seem strange that the decision to close in and force the driver to stop was done before the motorway was cleared.
So let me get this straight, when a court judgement is announced you refuse to give an opinion "because you don't know the full facts" but on a case like this you're able to immediately tell that the police were at fault?
Hypocrisy.
So an uninsured thief in a stolen car, probably no driving licence, shouldn't be stopped as he is no danger to the public. Just what planet are you living on Bystander? This piece of dross should have been forceably stopped, preferably with the help of an RPG7 round. It's his total disregard for the laws of the road and other peoples property that led to this smash and not the actions of any police officers.
I usually find your comments quite apposite, but I think you've overstepped the mark with this Bystander.
Another armchair hero: "stopped, preferably with the help of an RPG7 round".
Idiot.
In Australia there have been quite a few cases of deaths involving police pursuits, both of the drivers in stolen vehicles and third parties. There is quite strong public feeling against lives being lost in this way (especially of the innocent third parties, as in this case) and it is now quite common for police pursuits to be aborted in the interests of public safety. I think the pursuing police make the decision themselves. They also use other techniques such as road spikes to stop vehicles.
In this particular case, I would have thought that the chance of the stolen vehicle going out of control was fairly predictable, given that 4x4s are prone to roll and it was being driven at speed by a panicking thief.
I rate loss of life ahead of loss of property.
You ask "was this tragedy unavoidable?"
Well, of course it could have been avoided.
- It could have been avoided if the thief had not taken the vehicle in the first place.
- It could have been avoided if the car thief had stopped as soon as he realised the police were after him,
- It could have been avoided if the car thief had not intentionally battered police cars out of his way, with the clear intention of evading arrest.
Let us be quite clear: there is only one person responsible for the death of the Peugeot's driver. And that person had any number of opportunities to avoid getting into that situation in the first place.
Perhaps if people who kill others in incidents like this were locked away for a sensible prison term. Say 15 years for starters, then other potential killers would perhaps be dissuaded. We have lost the plot in Britain. I watched a program last night where a drug addled psychopath was involved in a police chase. He got a laughable 30 months. He should have been given ten years.
Bystander,
This is clearly a very upsetting case and I think your question is perfectly reasonable.
What I would say is that, ignoring the policy issue (which I think is quite relevant), this is still an issue of competing risks. They are the risk of injury or death to a third party or a police officer if a) the police merely follow; or b)the police intervene.
I believe they take this issue seriously and have a pretty careful policy stance.
Whether or not you agree with it, it's quite clear that whatever the policy they adopt, undesirable outcomes will sometimes follow. The question is which policy has the lowest risk.
As I think you have on occasion said (in other terms) everyone is currently lead to subscribe to the idea that, if only we behaved perfectly, risk could be totally eliminated and I'm afraid it's complete and utter tosh.
It is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't here.
To start with the What ifs - he had turned off the motorway and been involved in a head on collision and killed someone or hit a pedestrian?
You can bet that the fourth estate would have been blaming those officers for not doing enough.
It's terrible when someone dies because the police took action and it went wrong, but so much worse if one stands back and some thing happens when you could have done something.
be interesting to see hgow many times our car theif had been let off with a lenient sentence by the bystanders of the world.
just think had he been in prison he could not have stolen the car.....
months wages he is well known to police.
ANON
Of course hind-sight is a wonderful thing. If it was my wife/daughter/son that had lost their life in this *freak* accident I cannot begin to imagine what I might be going through. But I have a sneaking feeling I would not be thinking for a moment that the police were at fault (either the PCs in the following cars or the SO in the control room). If it hadn't been my wife/daughter/son then it might well have been someone else's and that fate had dealt me a very cruel hand.
I might however become enraged if I discover that the courts subsequently take away his licence (assuming he had one in the first place) for 12 months and give him a token prison sentence suspended for not very long at all.
So Bystander I don't concur - I would like to think that the command decisions are reviewed to make sure that the *best* decisions were taken on the day (which is implict in the report).
Bystander was right to raise a question, because the IPCC investigation seems just a bit "quick and dirty" for a case where a death resulted.
The IPCC may be right, but just to say "correct procedures were followed" is hardly enough to leave the public satisfied that the alternative adverse risks were rightly balanced.
Openness of review will do a lot to get the police the public confidence they need; slagging off Bystander will do nothing.
> Let us be quite clear: there is
> only one person responsible for
> the death of the Peugeot's driver.
You are absolutely right that the situation came into existance because of the driver of the car; but there is such a thing as contributory negligence.
That crash only actually occurred because the police tried to stop the car.
If the police had left the car be, then there might have been a different crash, later on - but that particular crash would not have occurred.
If we assert for the sake of argument intervention was unnecessary (the car was being safely driven) and the risk of doing so was clear (the driver could panic) then choosing to intervene is the wrong decision and directly contributes to the fatality.
People do not lose responsibility for their actions merely because another person is responsible for creating a situation in the first place.
> probably would've killed someone
> else later on
Is that really so? why do you think that this is so likely as to be probable? what do you know what went on in the case that leads you to such a degree of confidence?
'Another armchair hero: "stopped, preferably with the help of an RPG7 round".
Idiot.
Ed | 07.19.08 - 1:57 am |'
Is the idea that idiotic? The police can use lethal force against a criminal armed with a gun. Why not against someone driving a vehicle who is a serious threat to other road users and refuses to stop?
Whether it could be done without danger to other road users is another matter.
"The blame here lies with the dross that stole the car and thought it was OK to risk everyone's life in a car chase. Or am I mising something and it's not their fault - it's society to blame etc?"
Yes it is. No, you're not. But you're probably on the wrong blog, with that way of thinking 
It’s not even worth discussing this on here.
The author is completely ignorant of police operating practices and has made a wild assumption without knowing any facts, much like the tabloids that are derided on here.
This site is quickly turning into a very cheap police bashing forum.
These ARE hard calls, and, as Bystander and several others have said, "If you didn't hear the evidence (and watch the witnesses' demenour as they gave it) you shouldn't comment on the virdict/sentence. Ditto the decisions on chases. All I'd add is that the helicopter is great for following the car into wreckage, but not that great for taking the thief, and his chums, unless we are talking about a SeaKing with a platoon in the back which could be landed covertly to make the arrest.
One logical follow on seems to me to be that if the thief exceeds 70 mph in his flight, then he should be allowed to go?
I repeat that these are very hard calls.
The Police have many difficult calls to make during their onerous duties and, as usual, we have only limited information here. It is therefore inadvisable to jump to any conclusions.
Readers might be interested in these links:
This report about “needless risks” in Police chases was published by the BBC in 2007 -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/70.../uk/
7000318.stm
also in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/
200...tories3.ukcrime
This IPCC report had quite a lot to say about the management of pursuits and the report makes the point that a pursuit has to be a proportionate response to the situation:-
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/
rti_repor...ort_11_9_07.pdf
John Cowan also makes a good point - where are the barriers? What a tragedy that the driver was able to cross to the opposite side.
My first reaction on reading Bystander's comments was to reach for the IPCC report on Police Vehicle Accidents. This was a very thorough piece of research (which Peter Hargreaves links above : http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/
rti_repor...11_9_07_new.pdf
One of the over-riding conclusions is that most serious injury/fatal police vehicle accidents are for what turn out, in hindsight, to be relatively minor offences. No insurance, no tax disc and so on. Relatively few involve a stolen vehicle as the primary cause of the follow/pursuit, let a lone a high value one. What seems to have happened here involved a number of police vehicles. Under the ACPO guidance any of the drivers or observers, or the control room operator or supervisor (not necessarily just an inspector, but any one, of any rank or non-warranted) can call this off. On an ongoing basis there would be a dynamic risk assessment covering at least 13 key factors (eg relative speed, traffic density, weather, proximity of pedestrians etc etc). I am encouraged not just by the IPCC preliminary (for that is all they are at this stage) findings, but by the fact that some 10 or more police professionals did not see that this was inherently so risky as to be abandoned.
The IPCC is changing its aproach to investigations, having looked at how the Railways Inspectorate, Air Accident Investigations Branch and others report. Following an extensive review of its own procedures, the IPCC now expects to make a preliminary finding promptly in all cases with a detailed report later, as do the other bodies. This case seems to be one of the first where this has happened.
I wasn't there, and I suspect most contributors to this blog weren't either. It is very easy to be smug and say, from the comfort of the keyboard after the event, that the officers should have been able to tell what was going to happen. Comments about 4*4s being inherently unstable and so on are absurd. The basic laws of physics apply and any vehicle with a high centre of gravity is more likely to roll than ones with a lower COG, in certain sets of circumstances. However, I drive along part of the A1(M) most days and see hundreds, probably even thousands of 4*4s driven at speed, without flipping through the central reservation or rolling over in their own lane. In fact, I can't even recall the last 4*4 I saw on its roof or side, unlike the Ford Escort I saw earlier this week and a range of other saloon or estate cars in varying grades of dismemberment. If the 4*4 was being driven so as to avoid the following vehicles, swerving from one lane to another, well that's quite different. I recognise that of the three vehicles I drive most frequently, the handling is quite different. I know and care. I suspect the average car thief knows not and cares less - until it goes horribly wrong.
The police have to make split second decisions and the processes are policy led, well rehearsed and pre-thought. Occasionally there will be tragic results and like others, I feel for the bereaved family. But it is a fact that some eight people every day go out in a car and don't survive - and that's just the UK. The death may be for a myriad of reasons, from freak accidents to suicide. But it happens.
Don't blame the police for trying to do what society expects of them. Blame the thieves. And above all, blame anyone who does not stop when they are expected to do so.
Whether this restores the police readers' faith in this forum, or in the justice system, we will see.
PC Midlands - you are over-sensitive, Bystander rarely (if ever) goes in for gratuitous police-bashing (unlike the JP-bashing which seems to be a favoured-sport on police blogs) but raises reasonable points for debate in a reasonable fashion, as he did here. By all means disagree with views which criticise the police, but throwing your toys out of the pram and saying "It’s not even worth discussing this" doesn't help much. But perhaps you are one of those officers who knows that the police are always right and there is never another way of looking at things?
Has anyone ID'd the driver of the stolen car publicly yet? Anyone know how many times he's not been sent down when we had the chance? Enquiring minds want to know.
Rex Imperator- That is one of the best comments I have read on any site in the last few days.
Don't worry Bystander. The officers involved in such incidents will continue to be placed under a microscope over such incidents and their every decision and action tested and re-tested in the search for heads to roll. Unfortunately, the same level of scrutiny will never befall the judiciary of this land, whose naval gazing and prevarication in deciding what to do with class 'A' drug abusing repeat criminals (as undoubtedly this lunatic will turn out to be) is never subject, it seems to the same level of examination.
The executive can do no wrong.Police,army,judges,prison officers and anyone else along these lines.
Seeing how quickly blame or lack of was decided in this case - how come Nigel Gresham the unfortunate driver of the land rover that rolled over into the River killing 4 of his kids is STILL waiting to see if the CPS will take prosecution action against either driver involved???????!!!!!!!!
The suspense must be absolutely agonising for him - see his blog at http://www.adadsheartbreak.co.uk/
If I were to venture a barely-educated guess, I'd say what happened was that the police tried to TPAC the bandit car -box him in on all sides and then gradually brake until it's forced to stop- only to have the driver try and ram his way out rather than give up. If the driver of the pursuit vehicle swung the wheel back over towards the Mitsubishi, it was an act of self-defence, and I hope they charge the perpetrator with attempted murder.
Attempted murder won't stick - but dangerous driving ....if there was any in the run up to the accident...followed by a death might well stick. However, the CPS have started a slippery slope of charging at the lowest possible level to secure a conviction, so it will probably end up as TWOC or careless....
Off at a slight tangent here. One of the earliest commenters said: "all police chases are governed by ACPO policy".
As a mere "civilian" might I ask what business ACPO has governing anything? Has the body become our National Police Force? On what law do they base their powers?
West Country JP:
Saying that I dont think this merits discussion also applies to petty bickering.
IPCC report into deaths following police custody 2007/08 (ie till 31 March 200
isued today at 10:30 hrs:
"During 2007/08, there were 17 police-related RTIs, which resulted in the deaths of 23 individuals. Sixteen of those who died were male and seven were female. The average age at the time of death was 40 years: seven of the people who died were under 21 years of age. Five people were reported to be from minority ethnic groups. Of these, one individual was of Asian origin, one person was a Brazilian national and three people were of Black ethnic origin.
Seventeen people died during or shortly after a police pursuit. One of the 23 fatalities involved a police vehicle that was responding to an emergency call and five fatalities occurred during ‘other’ types of police traffic activity, such as standard police patrol."
The full report (which covers all deaths following police contact) is on the IPCC website
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/news/
pr21...ath_section.htm
Personally I think anybody who tries to escape the police by driving away at high speeds should be treated the same way as somebody waving a gun around firing randomly. Both car and gun are lethal weapons. Sooner or later the gunman will hit somebody, as will the driver. Shoot them both, I say, rather than let them put innocent lives at risk. Better the fool with the car or the gun dies as a result of his own stupidity, than some poor innocent just going about his or her day.
Rubbish. I know that if it was my car I would want the Police to do everything in their power to catch the offender.
What's the point of having the Police if they're just going to let criminals get away!?
Jonathan,
Fair enough. How many (other people's, natch) lives will you accept as a reasonable cost in getting your car back?
"If they let him go the scumbag (can I say this about a thief?) probably would've killed someone else later on"
Are you suggesting that since he might have killed somebody later on then it doesn't matter that he killed somebody at that point?? I don't follow your reasoning.
Many of the comments on this blog make me angry, only a few provoke a response, in this case, the comments by Toby | 07.19.08 - 12:45 pm.
I go back to a few years ago when I attended a domestic; the male, who was off his head on cocaine, had a knife to his grlfriends throat and was screaming that he was going to kill her. Her daughter (6 years) was cowering behind him. Fortunately we were able to asp the knife from his hand and then CS gassed him, causing him to fall to the floor. We then all jumped on him. In the melee the girlfriend and her daughter got some CS gas crystals on their clothing and suffered from weeping eyes and shortness of breath. We took them to the hospital and they were treated and discharged a short time later.
Obviously the reason they needed hospital treatment was directly due to the reckless actions of the officers present. I'm not sure how we were able to sleep that night. Somehow, we managed.
Tony said at 12:45 on 2008/07/19:
> Let us be quite clear: there is
> only one person responsible for
> the death of the Peugeot's driver.
You are absolutely right that the situation came into existance because of the driver of the car; but there is such a thing as contributory negligence.
There is, but that's not it. Contributory negligence is when your negligence contributes to your own harm. What you're talking about is joint liability.
PCR, obviously you did the right thing in controlling the drug-crazed nutter. What you're highlighting is that the protection of law and order can have a cost, and that the right balance must be struck.
I believe that wild, melodramatic exaggeration aside (mostly from the police camp, as highlighted by West Country JP's reference to "JP-bashing" on 2008/07/19 at 6:37 pm), all that's being discussed here is where that balance should lie. I think that the ACPO policy is probably about right.
Oh, and Yokel | 2008/07/20 says at 2:42 pm:
As a mere "civilian" might I ask what business ACPO has governing anything? ... On what law do they base their powers?
ACPO is the Association of Chief Police Officers, and its "policies" are those agreed by its members (who are, uh, Chief Police Officers), who then follow the policies for their own force. I trust that also answers the question of the legal basis of their powers!
@ Ed | 07.25.08 - 9:20 pm
So, the Chief Police Officers meet, demand more powers, and just happen to agree a common way of doing things throughout the land. Police Authorities, or the old Watch Committees, appear to have no input other than to do as they are told.
ACPO behaves as though it were a National Police Force, which is probably what the Home Office wants anyway. All this County Police Force stuff has been annoying the Home Office ever since they saw the success of the Volkspolizei, a gendarmerie working directly to the East German Ministry of the Interior.
Your trust is misplaced, whether in thinking that you had answered my question, or in the direction the policing of this country is taking. Given the Civil Contingencies Act and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, everything the party wishes to to is legal, or can be made legal retrospectively. Welcome to Prison Camp UK.
Yokel,
Did the tin-foil hat make your head all sweaty as you tore apart that strawman?
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