Collision following pursuit - Merseyside Police, February 2018

At approximately 9.20pm on 27 February 2018, two Merseyside Police officers were in a fully-liveried police vehicle in Liverpool when a car pulled out in front of them. Officers believed that the driver of the car ‘reacted’ to them following the same route and that the occupants of the car were trying to avoid police. They signalled for the vehicle to stop by activating their emergency warning equipment. The car refused and a short pursuit ensued.

It was reported by one of the officers at the scene that they lost sight of the vehicle for a short time and then discovered that the car had collided against a wall. The driver of the car was arrested a short distance from the crash site and had sustained some minor injuries. The front seat passenger sustained a serious head injury and was taken to hospital, where their condition was reported as critical.

During the investigation, investigators reviewed the initial accounts provided by the two officers following the incident and obtained further accounts clarifying a number of points arising from their initial statement. They also reviewed CCTV obtained from the route of the pursuit and radio transmissions.

CCTV footage showed that there was a distance between the police car and the car during the short pursuit. This was a fast-moving incident; the radio transmissions demonstrated that the process of notifying the control room of a car failing to stop was started in line with force policy, but was not completed due to the car colliding with the wall. The evidence indicated that the injury sustained by the passenger of the car was caused by the manner of driving and decision-making of its driver, and not the police.

Based on the evidence available we found no indication that any person serving with the police may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings, or had committed a criminal offence. We completed our investigation in December 2018.