Police pursuit and road traffic collision – Suffolk Constabulary, February 2022

The IOPC recommends that Suffolk Constabulary should ensure radio communications on the South Sentinel channel are recorded and retained in line with those on the Ipswich channel 1 (IP1) Airwaves. This learning recommendation follows an IOPC investigation where officers from Suffolk Constabulary engaged in a pursuit with a vehicle. During the pursuit, the suspect vehicle collided with a parked vehicle. The collision resulted in serious injuries being caused to an 11-year-old girl, who was seated in the parked vehicle with her family. The IOPC authorised the Driver Training Lead for Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies to conduct a debrief with the officers in the police pursuit vehicle. The role of the debrief was to establish best practice, to identify learning outcomes, and to ensure the force’s response to similar incidents in the future was improved where possible. This noted that “It appears that the Sentinel team use two dedicated talk groups, one for the early turn and one for the late turn. The early transmissions are recorded, but the late turn channel isn’t. This should be reviewed, as this would have provided additional communications detail on this occasion and could have provided further evidence of the officers’ actions.” Do you accept the recommendation? Yes

Accepted

Force response