Police ‘urged prosecution’ over soldier’s crash death in Cyprus

A US serviceman who hit an Army officer from Yorkshire in a fatal crash on an RAF base in Cyprus was not charged because “the American authorities took over the investigation”, a coroner’s report said.

Colour Sergeant Anthony Oxley, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was killed in the collision on June 2016 at RAF Akrotiri. The 40-yearold, from Ryhill, near Wakefield, was riding a motorbike when he collided with a Toyota Corolla driven by a US serviceman.

Col Sgt Oxley’s widow Sally Oxley has spent more than seven years campaigning for the details of her husband’s death to be made public.

A 2018 inquest in the UK recorded a narrative verdict, that his death had been caused by injuries to his head as a result of the crash.

Mrs Oxley said she had been pushing for a new inquest after being approached in a car park outside Nicosia District Court at a previous hearing by someone who worked for the Sovereign Base Areas Police – the civilian police force for Britishcontrolled Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

She said the person handed her a file with details of the crash that had not been made public.

An inquest was held in Nicosia in September last year and over the weekend Mrs Oxley and her legal team received the official translation of the coroner’s conclusion.

The report names the US serviceman involved in the crash for the first time and says criminal charges against him had been recommended before the US Air Force took over the investigation.

The coroner says the Constable of the British Bases in Akrotiri, Michalis Vasiliou, concluded in his investigation report in 2017: “I believe sufficient evidence is at hand to successfully prosecute Steven J Shirley for causing death by reckless/dangerous acts.”

The report says witness statements described the driver of the car “taking a sharp right turn without turning on his direction indicator to show his intention”.

It adds that during the inquest, Mr Vasiliou repeated his view that “it was clear that the car cut off the path of the motorcycle”.

The coroner writes: “The reason why no criminal charges were brought, according to Mr Vasiliou, is because the person in question was a soldier in the American Air Force and the American authorities had taken over the investigation.

“In his own report it appeared that he disagrees with a very large amount of the findings of the American report.”

The coroner says that during the inquest, Mr Vasiliou said the Sovereign Base Areas Police were “awaiting instructions on whether the driver of the car would be prosecuted” when US Air Force investigators “took over the investigation six/seven weeks after the crash”.

Mrs Oxley, who lives in Barnsley, said she cried after learning for the first time in the report that police had recommended criminal charges against the driver of the car.

Mrs Oxley’s legal team from KRW Law, which is working with L Zambartas in Cyprus, has now written to the Attorney General to request a new inquest based on the coroner’s findings.