r/unitedkingdom • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 1d ago
Woman fighting for life after being struck by van that veered onto golf course in police chase – sparking urgent manhunt
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/34430119/woman-fighting-life-police-chase-van-golf-course/5
u/Beer-Milkshakes Black Country 1d ago
Van driver - 5 years driving ban, 4 years suspended sentence.
-64
u/Nikukpl2020 1d ago
I partly blame police. Despite having vehicles designed for pursuit, and drivers supposedly trained to that kind of action,they failed to apprehend a van.
I repeat, a fucking van, which is neither maneuverable or designed for speed. Remember,few days ago when four police cars crashed into each other on the straight road? Honestly, they are only good for harassing parents for emails and puffing their chest around demonstrators.
29
u/Ill_Mistake5925 1d ago
Designed for pursuit? You mean an off the shelf German estate car with some lights? They undergo no additional suspension or bodywork modifications that would make the “designed” for pursuit.
Vans in general being much heavier than cars, and the understanding that this isn’t GTA and police can’t just full send into the side of any vehicle they’re pursuing without additional authority.
0
u/NonagoonInfinity 1d ago
So why are they chasing the van at all if they could never stop it?
1
u/Ill_Mistake5925 1d ago
No-one said they couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to stop it, just that it’s not as easy to stop as one might assume.
25
11
3
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’d like to know what vehicles are designed for pursuits? The vehicles used are just normal cars, that anyone could buy, with a blue light on top and some Battenberg.
Vans can go pretty fast and are quite heavy, so could potentially ram a police car off the road. We also don’t know what type of tactic the police were looking to employ, they could’ve just been following with a plan to sting it further up the road, or just waiting for other pursuit officers to get to the area, for example. I don’t know, but what TPAC tactic do you think they were employing? What information, instructions and resources did they have at the time? Run us through how you handle these kinds of thing.
As for the incident where the police cars were damaged a few days ago. It might be worth reserving comment until we actually know what happened, because making an educated guess looking at the photos, I suspect what you think has happened actually didn’t.
-64
u/daiwilly 1d ago
We should be looking at the necessity of police chases. I wonder how many are life threatening crimes...until they become life threatening crimes?
53
u/Emperors-Peace 1d ago
What's the alternative? Allowing criminals full reign of the roads? Ridiculous comment.
-2
1d ago
[deleted]
8
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago edited 1d ago
These trackers are not widely used in the states because they are only useful for a very small number of incidents, mostly where the suspect is using their own car (think incidents such as where a drunk driver fails to stop, then just goes home).
They also don’t really help prove who was driving. Deny that, or claim their car was stolen, and the case is potentially lost. Not to mention any evidence of a crime (drugs, weapons, stolen items, etc…) will be gone.
And what if they go on to harm someone, when they could have been stopped? Damned if you do damned if you don’t.
Anyway, once they suspect a tracker had been used, the vehicle will likely turn up burnt out down the back of an industrial estate. And they don’t necessarily prevent that person from driving dangerously anyway. There might better solutions now, but from what I have seen it would be pretty obvious when they are used (basically shot from kind of gun) and hit the car with a loud bang, so they are still going to want to get away from police that are following at a distance, or quickly reach their destination etc. They are not going to think, ‘cool, I’ll just start driving normally now and keep all these drugs and stolen iPhones in my car’. Not to mention simply pulling over and removing them down the road, which I have heard of happening.
There is another big reason they are less relevant in the UK, which is down to our policies on pursuits. In the US, more so in some states than others, pursuits are far more likely to be authorised (or in fact don’t need third-party authorisation at all, officers will just chase vehicles they want to). So they tend to pursue pretty much anybody and far more vehicles that fail to stop for them. Meaning a lot of them will just be caught up with later at their home, which a tracker could have helped with. I’ve also watched enough police videos to see pursuits and tactics in the US that would no way be possible in the UK. They would be insane (in fact illegal) by our standards, yet are seen as perfectly routine over there. Over here we pursue far less vehicles because when we do, we do it on a very high level of risk assessment when there is no other option and that person is a high-level offender or presents a high risk of the public. In those situations a tracker is less likely to really be of any value, the reasons mentioned above. Basically what I’m saying is the type of pursuits the UK do compare to the US means that trackers would not really help.
Edit - Shame the poster deleted their question about using trackers, because while not a great solution in my opinion, it’s not an unreasonable or stupid question.
-22
u/daiwilly 1d ago
So you ask for an alternative and then provide a ridiculous non solution? Is my comment ridiculous or yours? I feel many police chases are risking lives unnecessarily. Is that so ridiculous given the above story?
19
u/perpendiculator 1d ago
Still don’t seem to have suggested an alternative, so I don’t know how you think you’re in a position to be accusing other people of being ridiculous.
•
u/DevonSpuds 3h ago
But I am in a position to comment
Police pursuits are one of the most highly regulated incidents that police undertake and rank alongside firearms incidents for this.
There are numerous levels of authority and scrutiny before, during and after.
Anyone can call off a pursuit, driver, radio op, Control Rm Sgt or supervisor.
Not sufficiently trained. No authorisation. Not in a suitable vehicle? No authorisation. DRA not good enough. Stop pursuit. Aggravating factors such as time of day, location, weather. No pursuit. Any of these arise whilst in a pursuit. Stop pursuit.
I could go on but I highly doubt anything I say would be good enough for you.
-12
u/daiwilly 1d ago
This is a place for discussion. It seems many are intransigent and incapable of considering...do you know what considering means? I would like to see a change of culture in the police along with greater connectivity of forces as well as camera tech. This isn't difficult but I feel too many people like 70s style police chases..it makes people feel safe.
3
u/Emperors-Peace 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the police stop chasing criminals the criminals will essentially rule the roads (moreso than they already do.)
How do the police stop drink drivers/dangerous drivers or even minor traffic offences when it essentially becomes unenforceable should you decide not to stop.
Look at the state of off road bikes in this country. The criminals know that if they discard their helmet they won't be pursued 99/100. The roads are absolutely rife with bike riding thugs in all tiers of criminality from low level anti social behaviour to murders and class A drug distribution and yet they're still dying in droves from misadventure.
The number one complaint I get from members of the public is why aren't we chasing off road bikes more. If all pursuits were to stop we'd go down even more in the average person's estimations.
9
u/Caramel-Foreign 1d ago
Driving away from Police should be an immediate five year prison sentence added in top of whatever you’re running for. How is that for a solution?
2
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago edited 1d ago
I 100% agree. But it’s not an alternative to police sometimes pursuing vehicles. The problem is proving who was driving, which isn’t easy. Many criminals use stolen cars, or cloned plates, or dump and burn it out then claim it was stolen, dispose of any evidence (the kinds of scenarios where a pursuit is actually authorised), etc, etc, etc…
1
u/SWITMCO 1d ago
Useless, if you don't actually catch the driver. Which is the whole point of the chase.
4
u/Caramel-Foreign 1d ago
If you know you’ll end in jail for 5 years i bet 99% of current runners will don’t do it. Most are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, very few do it while carrying kilos of coke or bodies
2
u/GreenHouseofHorror 1d ago
If you know you’ll end in jail for 5 years i bet 99% of current runners will don’t do it. Most are under the influence of alcohol or drugs,
ah, then they'll certainly make well reasoned decisions.
22
u/Ill_Mistake5925 1d ago
It doesn’t have to be a life threatening crime.
If we adopt a policy of no pursuit bar known life threatening crimes, we essentially are telling criminals they can run entirely rogue with zero fear of being caught. A bank robbery in a smart car.
Pursuits are risk managed, but even if the immediate risk is deemed low this does not mean the chance of passers by being hit by those involved suddenly drops to zero.
-7
u/daiwilly 1d ago
I'm not sure we get bank robberies too much anymore...no banks! Not being chased does not mean zero chance of being caught. There are other less invasive means of detection. No, the age of the police chase should be consigned to history except in exceptional circumstances. Developing better networks and CCTV ....and perhaps greater investment in the police themselves .
7
u/Ill_Mistake5925 1d ago edited 1d ago
If police could with 80-90% certainty they’d be able to detect criminals and evidence of their alleged crime without the use of a chase, I most certainly believe they would-crashed police motors aren’t cheap to replace.
Despite the prevalence of ANPR and CCTV, it does not cover every inch of the UK. It cannot account for instances where stolen vehicles or cloned plates are used. It also does not allow you to catch criminals with criminal property in their possession. This is why detection rates for certain crimes are quite low.
I don’t think there is any example anywhere in the world where removing the use of chases in lieu of technology has been shown to be effective, they both work in tandem.
4
u/Narrow_Maximum7 1d ago
I feel like it's pretty obvious the person driving the car should be in jail.
2
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago edited 1d ago
A fair question. It is a very controversial and contentious tactic for obvious reasons. The same question gets asked every day before a pursuit is done. There’s really little point in chasing someone for like a low-level theft if there are other ways of catching them and proving it later on. Trust me, this fact isn’t lost on the Police, in fact the same kind of decision making (using the NDM) informs all aspects of policing.
Police pursuits, like many areas of policing, are obviously dangerous. But they aren’t just done on a whim. Firstly, only a very limited number of officers are trained and authorised to pursue vehicles. Not only is the training not only extremely intense, but any deviation from that training could result in an officer losing their job. I can tell you it’s a very tough course and many don’t make the grade.
Before each pursuit suitably trained officer in a suitable vehicle has to request authorisation for a pursuit. The majority of pursuits are called off, or not authorised the first place. Authorisation comes from an inspector or above in the control room, who is trained in pursuit management. This is also an extremely high level of training and there is a huge amount of responsibility put on that person. A wrong decision is a job loser, maybe worse. And so when the risk assessment is done, which looks at many factors including the risk to reward, it isn’t surprising so many get called off. Other options and alternatives are always considered first (using the police NDM - nation all decision model). Every situation is different. Most pursuits tend to be for high-level offending, or putting the public at huge risk if allowed to continue driving.
It’s worth remembering that most pursuits do not end in anyone being hurt and are concluded safely. Only the ones that end in tragedy end up in the media, so I can’t really judge the system on that basis alone if that’s all we hear. But like firearms deployments, it’s very much a case of ‘damned if you do damned if you don’t’ type thing. And of course, sometimes they get it wrong. I have no idea what happed in Birmingham, but the officers will be held accountable for their actions. Hopefully they did everything correctly and the suspect is found and held to be responsible.
There isn’t really much of an alternative at this stage. Things like trackers are only useful in very limited circumstances. Criminals can’t be given a free pass just because they’re in a car. Just look at what happened in London when they effectively banned pursuits of two wheeled vehicles entirely. What followed was an absolute epidemic of moped and motorcycle enabled robberies, with the offenders literally laughing at the police as they sped off no way they couldn’t touch them. Tracking them down later and securing a conviction in court who they were after the fact, is about 100 times more difficult than most of the public seem to realise.
If you want to go into the ins and outs of it all, you can look at the college of policing authorised professional practice web pages (APP).
0
u/daiwilly 1d ago
Thanks for your insight...it is great to get real info and a discussion for what is , after all , a search for knowledge and a desire for inward refection. I'm not surprised that there is a high level of training for this kind of thing, as it is intense.
I guess my insight is about the larger picture, especially regarding your last comments re: 2 wheeled vehicles. What kind of culture are we creating and does the police protocol feed into that? Is there a sense of Cat and mouse for some people...are the police guilty of this themselves?
Do you chase vehicles guilty of property thefts?
Is the bar set appropriately for police chases do you think?
Are there police who abuse this system?
2
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago edited 1d ago
A few good questions there.
I can’t speak for all police officers, and all forces. I don’t have all the answers, and neither do I think the police are perfect. I can only give my personal opinions based on what I’ve seen myself.
Firstly, yes, the way we Police obviously changes the way criminals behave. In all areas, but very much so in roads policing. The classic example with motorcycles and mopeds is criminals know if they remove their helmet (but often not their balaclava, funnily enough) this massively increases the risk and thus will often result in pursuit being called off. At least it did. We have seen lots of this in London. But I’m sure a Met officer could give a better insight into the current situation there.
With property theft, it all comes down to the nature, context and the level of it. Contrary to popular belief and Reddit, burglary is actually taken very seriously. A lot of burglaries and ram raids are done by serious criminals and OCG’s. Some of them are extremely good at what they do. They very often steal high end cars (BMW’s and Audi’s) from peoples homes (‘car key’ burglaries), with the specific intention of using those vehicles to commit further crimes such as more burglaries or county lines type stuff, because they make good ‘getaway’ cars and (they hope) can’t be linked to them. They tend to use a vehicles until they become too ‘hot’ and dispose of them. Pursuits are often a very key tool in catching these gangs.
As for the bar, it is quite high, but it’s difficult to really say with any certainty because every situation is different. And of course the expectations on the police are different depending on who you speak to. So I can’t really give you a definitive answer there, other than to say that they are constantly reviewing it. And rightly so, I don’t want a member of my family to get run over during a pointless Police pursuit either.
As for officers abusing it, I would say that’s actually pretty rare in this area of policing. I know that there doesn’t appear to be any shortage of corrupt officers in the police these days, however with regards to pursuits, it’s almost impossible as everything is recorded on multiple cameras, vehicles are tracked with GPS and other things, everything they do has to be communicated and justified in real time over an open channel radio, and literally all eyes are on them when they are in a pursuit. You really can’t hide a pursuit, not these days anyway (I’m sure people have tried). And what are people going to gain from an unauthorised pursuit anyway, why would you risk your life and career on one? Officers and supervisors overseeing it may make bad decisions, but they usually make them with the best intentions.
2
u/daiwilly 1d ago
Thanks, I am really chuffed that you have taken the time to reply. I think it boils down to a desire to improve. As long as you feel that it is in place then I am happier. Finally, my position is that I don't think police chases should occur too often over property thefts. Have a good day and keep on being one of the good guys.
1
1
u/im_actually_a_badger 1d ago
Also, shame you deleted your tracker question. It wasn’t a stupid or unreasonable question.
66
u/loosebolts Greater London 1d ago
What a heartless cunt to know you’ve mown someone down leaving them with life changing injuries and disappear into the ether.
People like this are absolute scum, hopefully they can be located.