Police watchdog to look at failures to find car crash site

THE police watchdog has announced it will investigate two forces after five young people lay undiscovered for two days following a car crash in Cardiff.

Childhood friends Sophie Russon, 20, Eve Smith, 21, and Darcy Ross, 21, went missing following a night out in South Wales after getting into a car with two new acquaintances, Rafel Jeanne, 24, and Shane Loughlin, 32.

They were last seen at around 2am on Saturday, but the crash site in Cardiff was not found for a further 46 hours.

Ms Ross, Ms Smith and Mr Jeanne were dead inside while Ms Russon and Mr Loughlin were taken to hospital and remain in a critical condition.

Family and friends of the victims have accused police of not taking the missing person reports seriously and claimed the car was only found through their own search efforts.

Gwent Police received three missing person reports between 7pm and 9pm on Saturday, while a report was also made to South Wales Police, covering the Cardiff area, on Sunday evening. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said it would investigate “police actions”. Police had earlier hit back at mounting criticism by insisting its officers, not the public, found the wreckage.

Gwent Police and South Wales Police yesterday said that shortly before midnight on Sunday a police helicopter “was requested to search an area of Cardiff which resulted in a vehicle being located in a wooded area off the A48”.

Two Gwent Police officers, who were in the area, then arrived to discover the Volkswagen Tiguan, said the forces.

Their intervention was a rebuttal to claims made by Mr Jeanne’s best friend, Lewis Pace, who said he and his father were the first to spot the car.

His father, Matthew, told Sky News police were around a minute behind them when they spotted tyre marks near the side of the road and pulled over.

He said: “(The police officer) was asking why I was there, and I said, ‘There’s all tyre marks here’ and then her colleague came out, looked at the tyre marks and they got the helicopter to search in this bush and that’s when it was confirmed it was there.”

He added: “The minute they were reported missing, surely they should have been looking, searching.”