Police contact with man before his death – West Midlands Police, December 2022

In December 2022, West Midlands Police officers were alerted to a driver of VW Golf which appeared to be travelling at excessive speed on the A45 in Coventry. The VW Golf turned into a petrol station and stopped.

The police officers pulled in behind the VW Golf and activated their blue lights. The driver of the VW Golf acknowledged their presence but then drove off from the garage, using an entrance to the garage to travel towards oncoming traffic on the A45. The police car did not engage in a pursuit but remained in the local area.

The VW Golf was subsequently involved in a head on collision with another vehicle on the dual carriageway, around a kilometre from the garage. The driver of the VW Golf was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the other vehicle suffered serious non-fatal injuries.

Our investigators attended the scene and the post incident procedure. We took witness statements from the police officers involved, the man who was injured, members of the public and others. We analysed CCTV footage, police officers’ body-worn camera footage and vehicle mounted camera footage along with radio transmissions.

We specifically investigated the actions and decisions of police officers and staff and whether the decisions and actions of officers and staff were in line with local and national policies and procedures.

Our investigation concluded in February 2023, but we waited for all external proceedings to conclude before publishing our findings.

During the investigation, there was no indication any police officer had behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or had committed a criminal offence.

At the inquest in October 2023, the cause of death for the driver of the VW Golf was found to be ‘Road Traffic Collision’.

We carefully considered whether there were any learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.

In this case, we did not identify any organisational learning.