Death following contact with police - South Wales Police, December 2018

On 8 December 2018, a South Wales Police officer was driving a marked police van in the Cardiff area when a woman walked into the road in front of him, apparently inadvertently. The officer braked, swerved to avoid the woman and got out of the van to find her lying in the road. Paramedics attended the scene and their initial assessment was that the woman had suffered minor injuries. She was admitted to hospital as a precaution, but her condition deteriorated and she was subsequently diagnosed with a brain haemorrhage and died the next day.

Our investigators attended the scene and the post-incident procedure. We obtained accounts from a number of witnesses and viewed footage from police body-worn camera. We commissioned a report from a forensic collision investigator.

Our investigation found no evidence of any bruising to the woman’s body and the forensic collision investigator found no other evidence that indicated an impact had occurred. He stated that, while he was unable to rule out the possibility that the van had struck the woman, any contact was likely to have been glancing and/or at low speed. Our investigation did not identify any evidence that might indicate that the police vehicle was travelling over the speed limit for the area, and the forensic collision investigator found no mechanical defects that might have been a contributory factor.

At no point during the investigation was there any indication that any person serving with the police may have committed a criminal offence, or behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings.

We completed our investigation in April 2019 but waited until the inquest into the woman’s death had taken place before publishing its outcome. The coroner recorded a conclusion of accidental death.