Road traffic collision resulting in death after police pursuit – Metropolitan Police Service, November 2021

In November 2021, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers in a marked police car observed a motorbike with driver and pillion passenger parked on the pavement. By the time the police car turned into the road, the motorbike had started to drive away, and the police commenced a pursuit. Whilst negotiating a bend in the road, the motorbike clipped a parked vehicle and crashed, resulting in the driver and passenger being thrown to the ground. Both were treated for serious injuries at the scene, and the driver later died in hospital.

We examined the accounts provided by the officers involved in the pursuit, as well as the officers on scene. We compared these accounts with the MPS incident log, recordings of the radio broadcasts, in-vehicle and body-worn camera footage and CCTV. Once we confirmed that the accounts of the officers matched the established facts, we checked their actions against local and national police driving policies to ensure they had conducted duties in accordance with the law.

We oversaw a mechanical examination of the police vehicle and motorbike involved in the collision and obtained a forensic collision report. We analysed CCTV and the police vehicle incident data recorder to estimate the speed of both vehicles and the manner of police driving.

Our investigation concluded in July 2022. We waited for all external proceeding 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.

An inquest was held in June 2023 and concluded cause of death as road traffic collision.

We carefully considered whether there were any organisational 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, our investigation has not identified any learning.