Road traffic incident following pursuit - West Yorkshire Police, July 2020

On 14 July 2020, while carrying out routine mobile police duties, two West Yorkshire Police (WYP) officers became aware of a BMW being driven at speed in Kirklees. When the officers requested the BMW to stop, it made off, and the officers began a pursuit. The BMW then drove through a red light at the junction of Leeds Road and Child Lane, Liversedge, where it collided with an Audi A3. The two occupants of the BMW and the driver of the Audi sustained serious injuries in the collision.

WYP referred the case to us as is mandatory when someone is seriously injured after contact with the police and we began an independent investigation.

We reviewed the WYP contact with the BMW and took a detailed account from the officers involved in the pursuit.. We reviewed WYP documentation and examined the police in-car footage which recorded the whole of the pursuit. We also examined the audio recording of the pursuit and incident logs.

We considered the officers’ actions alongside local and national police policies and found that they had complied with them as required.

We concluded that there was no indication any police officer may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence.

All police officers cooperated fully with this investigation. At the conclusion of the investigation we shared our report with WYP who agreed with our findings.