Road traffic incident reported before fatal collision - Thames Valley Police, October 2018

On 10 October 2018 Thames Valley Police received a report of a damage-only collision in Buckinghamshire involving a vehicle driven by a man and a parked car. The drivers exchanged details at the scene. The owner of the parked car reported the incident to the police via 999 and was advised to submit a report online, which he did the same day. In the report he raised concerns over the driver’s fitness to drive and the safety of other road users as a result. The incident was graded as ‘collision with possible offence but no evidence (no investigation)’.

On 15 October 2018 the same driver was involved in a fatal collision on the M40 in south Oxfordshire. The driver, their passenger and the driver of the vehicle they collided with died in the collision.

Our investigator obtained documents from Thames Valley Police relating to the original collision report as well copies of force and national policies and guidance.

We found that the call handler had graded and handled the call on 10 October in line with local policy and guidance on handling damage only collision reports. A task was raised the same day for a process officer to review the information received on the online collision report. Force timescales for responding to online collision reports are ten days. That review had not yet been carried out when the fatal collision occurred on 15 October 2018.

We found no evidence to suggest that Thames Valley Police caused or contributed to the three deaths which resulted from the collision.

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 April 2019.