Driver in Viola Beach canal plunge tragedy ‘ acted deliberately’
Investigating offi cer Lars Berglund said: “We can’t fi nd any secondary explanation. It looked like the driver acted deliberately.”
He said offi cers believed the group were probably killed by the raised bridge section.
“As far as I can see, most [ of the band] had already been killed up there on the bridge. It looks like the driver was acting intentionally.
“There is no suggestion that it was intended to kill himself or the band.”
The emerging indie band had just played their fi rst foreign gig and were returning to Stockholm’s Arlanda airport when tragedy struck.
An inquest into their deaths, opened and adjourned in Warrington, Cheshire, last week heard the driver had no alcohol or drugs in his blood.
CCTV footage is said to show the band’s rented Nissan Qashqai pull to a halt behind other cars waiting at barriers, which were down as the bridge was being raised.
But suddenly the car pulls out and goes past two other vehicles on the hard shoulder before crashing through the barrier, then disappears from view. Kent Udden, whose car was fi rst in the queue at the initial barrier, said the driver pulled past him like “a maniac”.
Mr Udden, 49, said the driver almost hit his car before driving through both sets of barriers, adding: “When he goes through one barrier, there is no doubt this is something you should not pass. It’s obvious.
“But we saw no indication that he was braking. We would have seen the brake lights, it was so dark. All I heard then inside the car was a muffl ed bang. It was hard to understand what had happened, it was all so surreal.”
Despite earlier claims that the warning lights and barriers were faulty, Swedish authorities have found that all equipment was fully functioning.
Now the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority has halted its investigation, in effect saying the incident was the fault of the driver.
In the week after the accident, the band reached number one in the iTunes chart following a social media campaign backed by Oasis singer Liam Gallagher and Tim Burgess from The Charlatans.
A concert in the band’s memory at Warrington’s Parr Hall on April 2 has now sold out.
The gig, which will feature friends and bands they had previously played alongside, will be hosted in their Warrington home town by Radio 1 DJ Phil Taggart.