High speed police pursuit examined after cyclist injured – Metropolitan Police Service, June 2024
Two officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) were searching for stolen cars on a nightshift. They noticed a car driving at speed and decided to follow it while checking whether there was any intelligence about it on police systems.
The driver of the car drove through a red light. The officers followed and activated their emergency lights and siren. The car did not stop and a pursuit began, with the police car reaching a top speed of 89mph in a 30mph zone.
The pursuit was brief and ended when officers lost sight of the car. The officers searched for the car, instead finding an injured cyclist lying in the road.
Officers gave the cyclist medical treatment, later finding out that the car they had pursued had collided with the cyclist, who sustained serious injuries.
We received a death or serious injury referral from the force and decided to independently investigate the nature and extent of police contact before the cyclist was injured, and whether the police may have caused or contributed to this.
We examined whether the pursuit was appropriate, proportionate and in line with the law and pursuit policy, and whether the communication between officers and the control room met local and national policy and procedures.
Our investigators obtained comprehensive statements from both officers involved in the pursuit, detailing their thoughts and decision-making processes.
We reviewed CCTV footage from along the route and private addresses near the collision. We examined officers’ body worn video footage, radio transmissions and considered evidence from experts. We reviewed footage from the police car which captured the pursuit, as well as the police car’s incident data recorder which records speed and the activation of emergency warning equipment.
We concluded there was no indication that a person serving with the police committed a criminal offence or behaved in a manner to justify disciplinary proceedings.
Our evidence showed that the officers lost sight of the car and were not pursuing it when it collided with the cyclist. We found no evidence that the level of speed driven by the officers during or after the pursuit contributed to or caused the cyclists injuries.
The driver of the police car was a trained pursuit driver and therefore was not under any speed restrictions. However, we found that the officers did not tell the control room what speeds they were driving at. Had they communicated top speeds of 89mph in a built-up residential area, this may have impacted the control room’s decision about whether to continue the pursuit. We recommended this be addressed with the officers by revisiting training in relation to commentary of pursuits.
We also found that officers failed to activate their body worn video cameras during the pursuit. We recommended this be addressed with the officers by their line managers.
We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
We did not identify any organisational learning specific to this case, although we are aware of previous matters concerning police driving in the MPS where excessive levels of speed have been concerning.
The MPS do not, unlike some other forces across England and Wales, place any restrictions on speed. This inconsistent approach across England and Wales may be leading to inconsistent disciplinary outcomes for officers depending on the force area they serve.
We are in the process of drafting learning recommendations that draw from other IOPC investigations into collisions that occurred within the MPS’s jurisdiction.