Police fined £100,000 over crash failures

Police Scotland has been fined £100,000 after admitting failings which “materially contributed” to the death of a young mother who lay undiscovered in a car for days with her partner following a crash on the M9.

The force pleaded guilty yesterday to health and safety failings following the deaths of John Yuill, 28, and Lamara Bell, 25, who died after their car went off the motorway near Stirling on July 5 2015.

Despite a call being made to police, the force took three days to respond and, when officers finally arrived, Mr Yuill was dead, while Ms Bell died four days later in hospital.

The High Court in Edinburgh, which heard the incident was down to “human error”, was told Ms Bell pleaded for help after being found and would probably have survived had this happened sooner.

Passing sentence, Judge Lord Beckett said: “This case arose from terrible events in which two relatively young people died, one of them after days of severe physical suffering when she must have been in an almost unimaginable state of anxiety.

“As days and hours went by she must have been in a state of disbelief that no help arose.”

He said it was “unprecedented” for Scotland’s police service to have been convicted in the High Court.

The judge said the fine took into consideration that it would be paid from the public purse and as the “normal level of fine would reduce the normal ability of the police service of Scotland to protect and serve the public”, and he set it at £100,000.

Ms Bell’s mother, Diane, welcomed the conviction, saying: “It has taken a long time for this conviction to be secured but it is a huge relief that Police Scotland has finally admitted being at fault for Lamara’s death.”

The court heard a member of the public noticed a blue car partly obscured by bushes off the M9 and called police at 11.29am on July 5, but the call handler did not create an incident on the police’s Storm IT system.

On July 8, someone else saw a car at the bottom of the embankment and went to investigate, spotting two people inside.

Ms Bell, in the passenger seat, was moving her arms and moaning and asked him to “help me, get me out”.

He tried to reassure her and called 999.

Emergency services attended and the mother of two was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries including to her skull and brain, and developed acute meningitis.

Prosecutor Ashley Edwards QC said: “Various experts from a range of specialisms agreed that had Lamara Bell been admitted to hospital within six to eight hours of her primary injury, the secondary complications of the injury leading to her death would have been easier to manage and would have been substantially avoided.

“This would in all probability have led to her survival, albeit with some long-term neurological disability.”

Mr Yuill, a father of five who had a provisional licence, died either immediately or shortly after the crash. Experts agreed his “very severe injuries” were not survivable.

The court heard the crash took place against a backdrop of police control room restructuring following the creation of Police Scotland.

FAILINGS: John Yuill and Lamara Bell lay undiscovered for days after their car crashed despite a call made to police.

A police officer at the scene on the M9, near Stirling.