Law chief given M9 crash report
Victims’ families welcome watchdog’s second probe
PROSECUTORS were last night examining a police watchdog’s report on a woman left dying for three days after a road crash.
The Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (PIRC) has submitted a second report to the Lord Advocate on the M9 tragedy last July.
Mother-of-two Lamara Bell, 25, lay by the roadside for three days after the crash near Stirling before dying in hospital. Her partner John Yuill, 28, died at the scene.
Prosecutors may now take legal action against Police Scotland amid claims of call-handling failures.
The new report examines why a phone call to police reporting a car off the road on July 5 was not followed up and also the procedure followed to log the call.
Investigators also probed the ‘robustness’ of a subsequent missing person inquiry and why this was not linked to the phone call.
It follows an interim report sent in November. Lord Advocate James Wolffe, QC, will now consider the new report before deciding on any action, including whether or not to hold a fatal accident inquiry or start a criminal prosecution.
The Bell family said in a statement: ‘The past 11 months have been a heartache for us all. However, the sincere wishes and support from the local community and beyond has helped us greatly with the grieving process.
‘The pain of losing Lamara in such tragic circumstances will never go away, but with this supplementary report, we are another step closer to knowing what happened to Lamara and John.’
The Yuill family said: ‘We are pleased the supplementary report has been completed and will hopefully take us nearer to some insight or answers as to what happened.’
PIRC said: ‘This has been an exhaustive investigation which has required many different facets of the incident to be fully explored. The commissioner will undertake further inquiries as required.’
Assistant Chief Constable Kate Thomson said: ‘We now await the decision of the Crown following their consideration of the PIRC report and, as such, the service is not in a position to respond to specific issues or questions raised.’
On STV’s Scotland Tonight last night, Police Scotland Chief Constable Phil Gormley said it would be ‘foolish’ to give a ‘cast iron guarantee’ there would be no repeat of the M9 tragedy.
But he defended police call handlers, saying the performance of staff ‘despite the pressure they are under is genuinely extraordinary’.
Mr Gormley said plans to shut police call centres would go ahead to allow a more centralised system to operate, but staff would be trained so their local knowledge was adequate to deal with callers.