Road Traffic Deaths: Police Investigations
(3 months ago)
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Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the important topic of police investigations into road traffic deaths. I do so this evening in support of and in tribute to my constituents George and Giulietta Galli-Atkinson, who have campaigned tirelessly on road safety over the past 25 years.
I first met the Galli-Atkinsons shortly after I was elected as the Member of Parliament for Rugby in 2010. The family had recently moved from London to Rugby. They came to tell me about the awards they had established in memory of their daughter Livia, who was killed in a road traffic collision in 1998. I remember our meeting very well. As we spoke, I was struck by their strong commitment to making our roads safer so that other families can be spared the tragedy they have had to bear.
Their daughter Livia was born at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield on 30 October 1981. She was growing into a beautiful young woman—thoughtful, studious, hard-working, kind and with a clear understanding of right and wrong. Her hobbies included riding and ballet. She loved “Gone with the Wind” and had a dry sense of humour.
On 12 January 1998, when she was 16 years old, Livia left home at 6.55 pm to walk to her Monday evening ballet class, which was due to take place at 7.15 pm on Windmill Hill in Enfield. As she was walking along the pavement leading to the studio, a car mounted it and careered into her, having first injured another pedestrian. Livia sadly died at the scene at 7.40 pm. At the time, George and Giulietta were completely unaware of what had happened. I remember George telling me how he had arranged to collect Livia after her class, and on his way there he saw blue lights flashing. He spoke of how the thought crossed his mind that it must be sad that for the relatives of the person being attended to by the emergency services.
When the case came to trial and the driver was found guilty by unanimous verdict of the charge of causing death by dangerous driving on 6 November 1998, I think everybody expected a custodial sentence. The judge, however, considered the case to be borderline with careless driving and accepted the defendant’s last-minute decision not to testify. The judge declared that there was no benefit in sending the defendant to jail, as he had previously been of good character, and said nor would it serve justice. The defendant received a £2,000 fine, 10 points on his licence and a five-year ban from driving.
An appeal against this leniency was immediately lodged with the Attorney General by the family and the Crown Prosecution Service. As he did not consider the sentence to be unduly lenient, the Attorney General declined the appeal. In 2000, the family took the Attorney General to judicial review on the grounds of unreasonableness. The first attempt failed. At the second attempt, the High Court found that, for the purpose of the hearings, it had been an unduly lenient sentence, and that while the Attorney General had made an error of judgment in denying the appeal, he had not made an error of law.
Still disappointed, in 2002 the family turned to the European Court of Human Rights to test articles 2, 3, 13 and 14. Again, Livia’s case failed. All avenues in the criminal process having been exhausted, the family turned to civil redress and the civil case succeeded. I understand that everyone who has read about Livia’s case agrees that the sentence was very light.
The inspiration for an award in Livia’s memory arose from the work of the three police officers in charge of the case, who were described by George and Giulietta as “superlative”. At that time, there was no public accolade for traffic police officers. The award was established by Livia’s parents in gratitude to the road traffic officers who investigated Livia’s case. George and Giulietta recognised that they fulfilled the expectations of professional service and integrity, and they formed the criteria and mandate for the Livia award. Through their own experiences, the family have, most admirably, turned their grief into something very positive.
The Livia award for professionalism and service to justice has grown from an award that was first presented in the Livia memorial garden as a memento of personal gratitude, into a milestone in the Metropolitan police’s history and annual agenda. The Livia memorial garden in Enfield was opened by the then hon. Member for Enfield, Stephen Twigg, in October 1999. The 100 square metre derelict site, adjacent to the pavement where Livia was killed, was transformed into a haven for public use. Stephen remains closely involved with the Livia award to this day.
The award has been endorsed over the years by all the Prime Ministers since that time, from Tony Blair through to Gordon Brown, David Cameron, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and Boris Johnson, along with every single Metropolitan Police Commissioner since 2000, and, most especially and significantly, by the Metropolitan police’s traffic command and its officers. The award is made annually to the Metropolitan police officer in the roads and transport policing command, serious collision investigation unit who is judged to have provided the most meritorious service to road death investigation, either in a specific case or sustained through several investigations, or by providing the family of a road crash victim with outstanding service.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is making an incredibly powerful speech. Having inquired about what goes on behind the scenes when investigating fatal road traffic collisions following a particularly tragic case in my constituency, I know that one thing that distresses families is the length of time it takes to investigate a collision and bring a case to court. West Yorkshire police do fantastic work and I pay tribute to them, as he is paying tribute to some of the officers he has referenced. One challenge is that it takes three years to train a forensic collision investigator. The challenge of getting the capacity in those training courses to train officers, so that there are enough incredibly talented and experienced officers to do this important work, is creating some of those delays. Does he share my thought that that is something for the Government to consider, so that the training can be undertaken in a timely fashion to ensure that we have the right number of special investigators and we get justice for families who are hit the hardest by these tragedies?
Mark Pawsey
The hon. Lady makes some important and pertinent points. I will go on to talk about the work of some of the officers I have heard about as a judge for the award. She is right to talk about the specialism of the role and the importance of effective training, and the time it takes for officers to achieve that level of expertise.
There are three criteria for the Livia award: service to justice when outstanding detective ability is displayed, professionalism when there is clearly excellence in the investigation, and service to the families of the victims. A 25th anniversary event was held in November last year, and I am proud to have been asked to be a member of the judging panel in recent years. It is worth pointing out that throughout those 25 years, the panel has been independent of the Metropolitan police and, indeed, independent of George and Giulietta. It consists of professionals and former professionals including solicitors and barristers, a former court reporter for a major newspaper, former senior police officers and, usually, a Member of the House of Lords and a Member of Parliament. It is also significant that nominations are made by colleagues of officers involved in the investigation of serious road transport collisions. The nominations are initially in writing, and are followed by interviews with those who are nominated.
In reading these accounts and hearing from the nominees each year—this is relevant to what was said by the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch)—I have been struck by the professionalism and service to justice that each of the candidates portrays. I have read, and heard face-to-face, accounts from police officers who have had to attend the most harrowing incidents. It was particularly interesting for me, as a provincial MP from a small town in the midlands, to understand some of the challenges of policing in a capital as large and sophisticated as London. Often, the people who have to pick up the pieces and bring families together are police officers, and I have heard a great deal from family liaison officers—a role that I had not heard of before my involvement with the Livia award. Being a member of the panel has given me an insight into a world that I would not otherwise have seen.
I want to provide a flavour of the calibre of the candidates, and the kind of work that they have had to do, through a couple of case studies. The first is the 2023 Livia award winner, Detective Constable Davina Nash, who had been the collision investigator for a serious injury collision that took place in Acton, London, in June 2021. The collision resulted in potentially life-changing injuries to a two-and-a-half-year-old girl who was with her mother and brother, crossing a major road showing a green light at a pedestrian crossing. She was on a toy scooter when, despite the signal being red for traffic and a stream of stationary cars waiting for the signals to change, a moped rider approached the crossing at speed, overtook the stationary cars and collided with the little girl, who was part of the way across the crossing. Her injuries were so severe that medical staff thought she would die, or would be left with a severe brain injury.
As family liaison officer for the family, DC Nash had to pick up the pieces. She carried out a meticulous and thorough investigation, and her work led to a successful prosecution for causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving while over the cannabis limit, and driving with no licence and no insurance. The judge imposed the maximum sentence possible after a guilty plea reduction, which was 42 months’ imprisonment, and commented that the sentence was nowhere near high enough given the gravity of the little girl’s injuries.
The second case study refers to the work of another 2023 award nominee, Police Constable Ed Raymond. On Sunday 10 July 2022, a fatal road traffic collision occurred in New Kent Road, Southwark. The 24-year-old driver was unlicensed and at almost twice the drink-drive limit when the car that he was driving smashed into a pedicab, throwing the passenger from the vehicle and killing her. The driver of the rickshaw sustained life-changing injuries.
PC Raymond was employed as a family liaison officer—such an important role—and he went to extraordinary lengths to support the victim’s family. In this case, the defendant pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving and a number of other offences, and was sentenced to just over nine years in November 2022. However, in the first case of its kind, the case was reviewed by the Attorney General and an unduly lenient sentence appeal was heard at the Royal Courts of Justice in January 2023. This was due to the changes in sentencing guidelines for death by dangerous driving that came into force in June 2022. The appeal resulted in the first stated case and the sentence was increased by a third. The driver of the vehicle is now serving 12 years in prison.
PC Raymond’s role was to ensure that the victim’s family were fully supported throughout, and he was able to establish a very special relationship with them. A year on from the collision, he joined the family in raising over £9,000 for various charities, one of which is Brake, which provides support for bereaved families who have lost loved ones in road traffic collisions. I give those examples as an illustration of the severity of the cases that officers are having to deal with.
George and Giulietta have not initiated these awards over 25 years just for the sake of the awards; they have also fought tirelessly for more appropriate punishment for those found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving. On both fronts they have been incredibly successful. It has been an honour to work alongside the Galli-Atkinsons and to see how their energy and dedication to road safety has inspired and changed the work of the police in this area. As a consequence of their pressure, there are now three specialist units within the Metropolitan police: the roads and transport policing command, the serious collision investigation unit and the forensic collision investigation unit. All are working tirelessly on the vision to achieve safer roads and fairer sentencing.
The roads and transport policing command is the largest operational command unit in the Metropolitan police and, working in partnership with Transport for London, its focus is to deny criminals use of the roads, and to reduce serious injury and road deaths within London. The roads policing teams work 24/7, 365 days a year, responding to serious and fatal collisions and incidents as well as targeting collision hotspots and educating road users.
Education is a theme that George and Giulietta have picked up. They have been involved with many successful campaigns and programmes as well as supporting road safety charities such as RoadPeace, Brake and Victim Support. I would like to refer particularly to Safe Drive Stay Alive, which George helped to set up in Enfield in 2008. Positive feedback grew, and more and more London boroughs became interested in delivering that brand of road safety education to a range of people that it was important to influence, including learner drivers in their sixth-form years. This programme, initiated by George, eventually covered 19 London boroughs, working in partnership with councils, emergency services and the roads police.
As the local MP in Rugby, I am delighted that the programme was introduced in my constituency in 2017—George and Giulietta having come up to the midlands—when funding was provided by the Warwickshire chief constable. I have seen that Safe Drive Stay Alive is a professional, high-impact and effective stage show. The objective of this road safety initiative is to show easily influenced young people why, as young drivers, they and their passengers are so vulnerable in their early years on the roads, and to show them what they can do to reduce this vulnerability. I have absolutely no doubt that those messages have saved lives.
George has also been involved with Learn2Live in Hertfordshire—an initiative similar to Safe Drive Stay Alive that reached more than 7,000 students. He was subsequently asked by the Ministry of Defence in 2019 to be involved with its road safety initiative, Survive the Drive, in London and Surrey.
Over 25 years, George and Giulietta have contributed to countless public consultations on road safety legislation and enforcement, and their influence has borne fruit. In 2011, the then Member for Enfield, Southgate, David Burrowes—who was a judging panel member for a number of years, and who worked closely with George and Giulietta—successfully campaigned for a change to dangerous driving legislation to increase the maximum sentence to five years.
To this day, the couple are campaigning tirelessly with Members on both sides of the House to ensure that the road safety investigation branch, promised by the Government, comes to fruition. I am delighted to say that in 2023, for the first time and after much campaigning in which George and Giulietta have been instrumental, the Home Office included roads policing in its strategic policing requirement, starting at paragraph 166:
“Roads policing is responsible for the enforcement of traffic laws, detection, deterrence and the response to illegal or dangerous activity on the roads… Roads policing capabilities play an essential role in tackling the use of the roads network by terrorist threats and serious and organised criminals involved in county lines drug transportation, modern slavery and human trafficking. They are also essential in managing incidents caused by public disorder or civil emergencies.”
George and Giulietta are truly an inspiration, and their energy and commitment to road safety, fair sentencing and proper recognition of outstanding police officers in this area of policing deserve high recognition and praise. Rugby is incredibly lucky to have two such people in our midst, and it has been my honour to have been invited to join Giulietta’s work on the Livia award.
I have found it inspirational, and deeply challenging, to learn about the work of road collision investigators. The role is sometimes overlooked within the police service, but it is vital to the pursuit of justice for those affected by road traffic incidents. The work that George and Giulietta have done to maintain the high profile of the Livia award throughout its 25 years has done much to highlight this valuable policing role, and has recognised many police officers who have gone above and beyond the call of duty in supporting families such as the Galli-Atkinsons.
The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) on securing this Adjournment debate. Every road traffic death is a tragedy, and I strongly echo what he said about the impact on those affected. I join him in thanking the police for the excellent work they do up and down the country every day to keep our roads safe, and to respond to fatal and serious road traffic incidents. These are often extraordinarily distressing incidents, but it is the role of the police to investigate them in a clear-minded and thorough way. The investigations can often be complex and technical, but the public rightly expect the police to undertake them.
I would like to convey my deepest sympathy to my hon. Friend’s constituents, George and Giulietta Galli-Atkinson, for the tragic loss of their daughter Livia. I have been very moved, as I am sure we all have, by his description of the family’s work since the tragic death of their daughter to try to bring some good out of an awful personal tragedy.
I wish to put on record my sincere thanks to George and Giulietta for the work they have done these past 25 years to promote and campaign for road traffic safety, including in establishing and perpetuating the Livia award for professionalism and service to justice. As my hon. Friend has said, it has played such an important role in highlighting the work that collision investigators and family liaison officers do—in trying to bring some answers following tragedy and in looking after the families in their hour of darkness as best they can.
Police officers up and down the country show, on a daily basis, enormous commitment and dedication in responding to fatal road traffic incidents, and it is right that their efforts are recognised. Again, I thank the Galli-Atkinsons for what they have done to support and promote this work, and to campaign for road safety. What they have done has truly made a difference over the past 25 years, as my hon. Friend set out. They should be incredibly proud that they have shown such courage, fortitude and determination to bring such good out of a terrible tragedy.
Of course, many families respond in that way. As a constituency Member of Parliament, and in my role as the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, I, like other Members, often meet families whose lives have been touched by tragedy; and we find that often they do respond as the Galli-Atkinson family have, by trying to bring some good out of their tragedy in order to help other people who find themselves in the same situation. It is important that we, as Members of Parliament and Ministers, listen carefully to what families who have had such terrible experiences have to say, to make sure that we in Parliament and in Government can learn from them. I therefore repeat my thanks to the Galli-Atkinson family for their campaigning, which does make, and has made, a difference; their voice has absolutely been heard.
Let me make one or two more general remarks about road safety, which is, of course, a priority for the Government. We continue to work to make our roads safer. Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world, but we are not complacent. In 2022, there were, sadly, 1,711 fatal road collisions—each one a life cut short. We need to make sure we do everything we can to make our roads safer and to tighten the law where it needs to be tighter. We need to do that to make sure, first, that accidents are avoided and, secondly, that where a driver has been careless, dangerous or reckless, or has driven under the influence of drugs or drink, they are brought to justice, that families can see justice being done, that there is a deterrent effect and that those sentences can be felt across society.
Although we have safe roads compared with many other countries, the work is certainly not done—there is more to do. By working with Members from both sides of the House—especially those whose constituents, like those of my hon. Friend, have experienced tragedy—and listening to them and to their experiences, I know that we can do even more. All of us will work together to make sure that that happens.
Question put and agreed to.