Cop: ‘I quit on pursuit’

THE officer in charge of a fatal police pursuit admits he “is not sure” why he didn’t call it off – while another officer in pursuit decided to stop, saying that was his personal “assessment”.

Sergeant Dave Martin was the communications co-ordinator in charge of a pursuit that ended when a stolen ute driven by Logan Dreier, 18, crashed, resulting in his death.

Logan was being pursued by multiple police vehicles on the M1 on August 9, 2019.

He died after he was thrown from the cab when it crashed on the corner of Nerang Rd and Queen St, Southport. On day three of an inquest, the Southport Coroner’s Court heard Dreier exceeded the speed limit, drove on the wrong side of the road and ran a red light.

Asked why the pursuit was not terminated, Sergeant Martin said: “I’m not sure.” He said he didn’t think he was in charge of the pursuit and thought a Brisbane duty officer would take over, despite not notifying them.

“This whole time the RDO (regional duty officer) was transmitting, ‘Is anyone in pursuit?’. That came over continually ‘Is anyone in pursuit?’ and no one was answering,” Sergeant Martin said. “But I believed someone was in pursuit.

“When I heard the wrong side of the road and mention of 100km/h, which I think is in a built up area, that’s when I walked back and while I was reading the incident, having a think about it, I think literally a minute later the vehicle crashed. There was possibly a minute, minute and a half between that transition and the crash. I was thinking of terminating it at that stage.”

He faced disciplinary action for contravention of a policy.

Earlier, the court heard a police radio operator who took a call that officers were in pursuit of a stolen ute had no direction from Sergeant Martin, her supervisor, during the chase.

Duty officer Senior Constable Michelle Phillips, in the communications room at the time, said she walked over to Sergeant Martin to tell him of the pursuit and turned his radio on. She said during the incident Sergeant Martin did not speak or write notes on the job card.

“All I had seen from the (communications co-ordinator) was he had approved the job. I told him, ‘Do you realise there’s a pursuit happening?’ and he said ‘Oh’,” she said.

Queensland Police radio operator Claudia Nicholls took the call that officers were in pursuit of Dreier.

It was the first pursuit Ms Nicholls was involved in since starting in the role nine months earlier. Ms Nicholls said she yelled across the room to tell supervisor Sergeant Martin there was a pursuit but he did not respond.

Senior Constable Hugh Harverson, in pursuit, told the court he abandoned it as it was too risky: “You need to make a decision about whether you want to get involved. It’s a dangerous thing … I had made my assessment and didn’t want to be involved.”

The lawyer for Dreier’s family said footage showed Constable Harverson attend to Logan and conducted himself in a “professional manner”.