When Claire’s husband was killed by an elderly driver, police wouldn’t press charges. Her lonely fight for justice at last is testament to love and tenacity
FROM the moment the police officers standing on her doorstep said: ‘Can we come in?’ Claire Montgomery’s life went into freefall. The suitcases for her big retirement holiday with her husband were already packed. They were supposed to be leaving for Costa rica and Ecuador the next day.
David, 66, a retired engineer, had only popped out for a quick lunch, to say goodbye to his friends from his motorcycle club.
Suddenly, she was trying to process the news that he was dead — hit by a car while on his motorbike.
Their two children had to be told. David’s sisters. Claire did not know what to do, to say, to think. What she does remember was that the police officers were kind.
One of them assured her that, whatever else she was facing, she need not worry about the legal process.
‘He said a man had tried to do a U-turn and gone straight into David. It was a clear-cut case of dangerous driving and there were witnesses. Justice would be done.
‘At least that was one thing I did not have to worry about.’
What Claire, a retired social worker, did not realise at the time was that she would have to turn detective to ensure justice was served.
She would have to fight — ‘and fight, and fight’, she says — even paying £2,500 for her own report into the accident, so that the man responsible for her husband’s death could be held to account.
‘It’s appalling,’ she nods. ‘ No one should have to pay for justice.’ And this week, finally, justice was indeed served.
At Cambridge Crown Court, pensioner William Curtis, 88, was found guilty of causing death by careless driving.
It was no thanks to Bedfordshire Police. Despite the assurances of that first officer, the force initially refused to bring charges against Curtis, suggesting to Claire that her husband had been partly to blame for the accident.
This was simply not true, and was indeed challenged by the coroner at David’s inquest.
Claire, now 68, has spent the past four years challenging officers, all the way up to and including Chief Constable Garry Forsyth, and enlisting the help of her local MP.
Her extraordinary battle has required not only deep pockets but deep emotional reserves.
How this grieving widow was treated by the police is troubling. So flawed was the accident report that her own expert challenged its findings within ten minutes of seeing it.
Even more worrying, Claire discovered that the pensioner the police seemed unwilling to blame was the grandfather of a civilian police employee.
Worse, when she challenged the ‘official’ version of events, she was treated with contempt.
‘It was Kafkaesque at times,’ Claire admits. ‘This was a man attempting to do a U-turn across three lanes of traffic, at a point where it was not safe to do so — and they were looking for things my husband had done wrong. At one stage I was told that there was no sign on the road about not doing U-turns.
‘My response to that one is that there is never a sign telling you not to jump off a cliff — but it’s still not a good idea.
‘I could not understand it. Even when it emerged that he hadn’t had his hearing aid in, or his glasses on, they still tried to suggest my husband was at fault. I remember asking them, tongue-in-cheek, if the old man was related, because I couldn’t see another explanation. I was told: “No, no, absolutely not.”
‘But he was, and it was subsequently confirmed that his granddaughter had emailed officers working on the case for information, and her husband had sat in on his interview.’
Claire, meanwhile, was fobbed off as the officers ‘closed ranks’ and ‘doubled down’.
‘I was seen as an irritation. Eventually, I had the right to see all the paperwork, although I had to use Freedom of Information legislation to get some of it, and I was not talked about in terms that were flattering.
‘Two of the officers referred to me as “that woman” and apparently used emojis about me. I can only imagine what emojis.
‘The stress of it — because this fight has been my life for the past four years — has been considerable. The physical and mental toll has been awful.
‘My family wanted me to drop it because of how it was affecting my health. But there was no way I was going to let them
say my husband did anything wrong, when he did not. How dare they!’
Claire tells the full story in the immaculate living room of the home she and David shared in St Albans, Herts. Family photographs offer evidence of a long and happy life together.
They met in 1979 when he worked in the defence industry and she was a senior social worker. They had two children, a boy and a girl. Their first grandchildren, twin granddaughters, arrived just last year, ‘ which David would have loved’. They had retired together, with grand plans for the future.
David Fudge had been obsessed with motorbikes since he was 16, was a member of two biking groups, and frequently went on motorcycling holidays. Claire was more wary, but had joined him, riding pillion, on trips. ‘ He was obsessive about safety. He had never been in an accident. He never took a risk,’ she says.
The minute she saw two police officers on the doorstep on that dreadful day in November 2018, she knew something terrible had happened. ‘I said: “You are going to tell me my husband is dead, aren’t you?” ’
She insists there was no anger directed at Curtis — not then anyway.
‘I think I even felt quite sorry for him,’ Claire says. ‘I think if he’d done what most people would have done — stand up and say “Oh God, I did something terrible” — I would have forgiven him.
‘If there had been any question of a custodial sentence I would
‘No one should ever have to pay for justice’
‘How dare the police try to blame David?’
have written to the judge myself and said: “I do not want that.”
‘But he has never said “sorry”. And you can’t forgive someone who isn’t sorry.’
It is normal police procedure to interview a suspect in a fatal collision at the scene, or as soon as possible after the accident. This did not happen.
‘ We had Christmas, then January went into February, then March, April and May. When I queried it I was told it was impossible to say how long the investigation would take.’
The officer who had initially told Claire the case was clearcut had been taken off the investigation, however, and replaced by a female officer, ‘who took a very different tone with me.
‘She made it very clear he should not have said it was straightforward.
‘Later she said they were never going to charge a little old man who had dementia. It was the first time I’d heard any mention of dementia.’
Confusingly, Claire says she was later told that Curtis didn’t have dementia after all.
In fact, it was seven months before the elderly driver was even questioned. This is particularly remarkable given that the
investigating unit — comprising officers from Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire forces — was under review because of failings in investigations.
‘He wasn’t fit to be questioned, apparently,’ she says, pointing out that since Curtis was eventually deemed fit to stand trial, this was ‘odd’.
‘Once he had been questioned, the liaison officer told me — via email — that because of his age, they would be looking at a charge of careless driving, rather than dangerous driving.
‘I didn’t care what the charge was. I just wanted it to be over.’
‘Then, on October 1, the officer said they had the forensic report and I wasn’t going to like it.’
That’s an understatement. It was eventually established that this report contained errors, including incorrect speed calculations, but Claire’s horror stemmed from the fact that it ‘ focused on David’s failings’.
‘It was all about what David should have done. He should have been looking for this car coming across the traffic, apparently.
‘It said he was driving in an unorthodox manner. It came at everything from the point of view that he was the suspect and Mr Curtis was the victim.
‘It even said that Mr Curtis had done all the right things by looking in his mirrors.
‘There was a line that said “both the motorcyclist and the driver suffered serious injuries”. My husband was killed. They said they wouldn’t be referring it to the CPS.’
At the end of October 2019, Claire requested a meeting with the police. ‘The bikers paid for me to have a solicitor, who took one look at the report and said “the police are stark raving bonkers”.’
Here, things turned farcical, Claire says. ‘By the end of that meeting, officers admitted they had got things wrong.
‘But then they asked if I would like to rewrite the report. My solicitor said: “Excuse me, it is not my client’s job to rewrite your report for you. Can’t you do it?” and they said: “No, we are not allowed.” ’
A review of this report was requested. ‘It was a shambles. We ended up with a review of a review of a review,’ Claire says. The new version contained that astonishing line that Curtis hadn’t been wearing his hearing aid or his prescription glasses, so he could neither hear nor see the motorbike coming. Yet still the case was not referred to the CPS.
Claire had a heated conversation with the investigating sergeant. ‘I kept saying: “I cannot believe you are telling me that this old man couldn’t see or hear, but you can’t refer this to the CPS?” But he dug his heels in.’
With no prospect of a referral to the CPS — necessary for a criminal conviction — an inquest was held. Emma Whitting, senior coroner for Bedfordshire challenged the police evidence, concluding that David had been driving lawfully, and that it was Curtis who had caused the accident. Claire breathed a sigh of relief and contacted the Chief Constable for Bedfordshire. ‘Naively, I thought he would be falling over himself to say “sorry”, but no, nothing had changed,’ she says.
By now, Claire had engaged the help of her MP, and the charities Road Victims Trust and RoadPeace, which support crash victims and their families. She had also submitted formal complaints and launched a civil case.
She was spending every waking moment poring over the mounting paperwork, ‘and driving everyone, and myself, mad’.
‘The only chink of hope came in January 2021 when the Chief Constable told me that if I could find new evidence he would have another look at it.’
Enter David Loat, a former police officer now working as an independent investigator, whom Claire hired to go over the file.
‘He warned me that it might take a while for him to come back to me, but within ten minutes he called me and said: “This police report is an absolute disgrace.” ’
It was the breakthrough she needed. The Chief Constable said a new team — but one headed by the original investigating sergeant — would investigate. Again, Claire
‘The cost to my family has been unacceptable’
objected, and it was agreed that the case would be passed to Essex Police, ‘ who came back very quickly and said “yes, of course it should go to the CPS” ’.
It still took another year for the case to come to court, however, and it was only after Chief Constable Garry Forsyth had formally apologised to Claire that she discovered the link between Curtis’s granddaughter and the investigating officers.
Claire was in court every day and admits she felt a huge sense of relief when the jury returned a guilty verdict. ‘Finally. My husband had not done anything wrong.’
The Chief Constable’s statement on the sorry affair acknowledges that Claire succeeded where his officers had failed.
‘The failings in the investigation . . . undoubtedly compounded the pain, suffering and grief that Mr Fudge’s wife and family have had to endure since his death, and I am genuinely sorry,’ he said.
‘If it had not been for their relentless campaigning there is real potential this would have slipped by and justice would have been missed. I’m so pleased that didn’t happen. We have reimbursed the cost of their private investigation, which played a key role in the matter being re-opened.’
Yet no one has been disciplined for the police failings. Claire says one of the officers involved has been promoted. Given that this whole case was about accountability, that rankles.
Mostly, she is weary and seems well aware it is only now she can start to grieve for her husband.
‘It should not have taken four years of me pushing to get to this point,’ she concludes. ‘I don’t know whether it was down to incompetence or laziness, but the cost to the public purse has been ridiculous. The cost to me and my family has been unacceptable, too.
‘Ultimately, David was my best friend, my everything — you can’t put a price on that.’