Man fatally injured after collision with police car - Merseyside Police, December 2018

On 25 December 2018, a Merseyside Police officer was driving a fully liveried police car in the Liverpool area accompanied by another officer. While driving northbound on the A59 (Scotland Road) the officers began to respond to an emergency call that had been graded as requiring an emergency response. On its way to the incident the police car collided with a pedestrian.

Our investigators attended the scene and oversaw a post-incident procedure involving the officers involved. We took a number of witness statements, attended the post-mortem, conducted house-to-house enquiries and liaised with collision investigators. We also collected policies and a large amount of documentary material from police officers, collected and reviewed CCTV as well as speed camera and pedestrian light data, obtained officer training details and course plans, and reviewed radio and 999 calls.

The investigation has shown that the police vehicle was displaying emergency lighting at the time. CCTV shows the man looking towards the direction from which the police vehicle was travelling before stepping out into the road about ten metres from a traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing, which was showing green for the police car. Evidence indicated that the police driver only became aware of the man’s presence at a point at which it was too late to avoiding colliding with him, given the speed at which the police car was travelling.

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 but waited until the inquest into the man’s death had completed, in early 2020, before publishing its outcome.