Complaint relating to an injury after collision - South Yorkshire Police, October 2016

On 23 October 2016, in Sheffield, a South Yorkshire Police (SYP) car collided with another car. The man driving the other car sustained serious spinal injuries.

After the collision, but prior to the arrival of paramedics, SYP officers removed the man from his car and placed him in the rear seat of a police vehicle. The man’s wife, who was a passenger in the car at the time of the collision, made a complaint to SYP about officers removing her husband from the car before the paramedics arrived, and the potential negative impact this had on his injuries. The actions of the police driver and manner of his driving were independently investigated in a separate IOPC investigation.

During the course of this investigation, we interviewed all the officers who attended the scene of the collision as witnesses. We conducted house-to-house enquiries at the scene of the collision and identified independent witnesses who had observed the actions of the officer after the collision.

We instructed medical experts to comment on the likely cause of the man’s injuries and the potential impact on his injuries by moving him. The Investigator sought evidence from SYP’s training department on the information provided to officers on dealing with injuries resulting from road traffic collisions.

We found that both the man and his wife thought their car may have been on fire or about to catch fire, and that this may have influenced the police officer’s decision to remove him from the vehicle. Without any degree of certainty on this, we could not conclude that the officer’s decision was unreasonable in the circumstances.

We found no evidence confirming or refuting the complaint made that removing the man from his car had contributed to his injuries. However, evidence from the medical expert indicated that, in all likelihood, the injuries suffered by the man were caused by the collision. We did not uphold the complaint.

Our investigation highlighted a lack of policies or guidelines at SYP for officers dealing with people injured in road traffic collisions; the first-aid training provided to SYP officers does not specifically reference this issue. The investigation also showed that one of the officers moved the man but did not document their actions and rationale for doing so.

After reviewing our report, SYP agreed that they would address these areas of learning.