The Police Ombudsman has been critical of police actions in pursuing a lorry through a residential area of Belfast, during an incident which resulted in four shots being fired at the lorry driver.
The incident happened at around 3pm on 3 November 2006 after a two-man police patrol stopped a lorry on the M1 motorway in Belfast on suspicion of transporting illegal fuel.
An officer got out to speak to the driver, but when he returned to the patrol car to check some details, the lorry drove off and travelled a short distance before exiting the motorway at the Donegall Road offslip.
Lorry drove through red lights, mounted kerbs and crashed into a car.
The police followed the lorry, and signalled for the driver to stop by activating their vehicle’s horns and blue lights. These signals were ignored and the lorry continued through residential streets including the Donegall Road, the Falls Road, St James’ Avenue ad St James’ Park - mounting kerbs, crashing into a car and driving through red lights as it went.
The lorry stopped briefly at St James’ Avenue, before reversing and crashing into the police car. As it did so, an officer who had got out of the police car, moved towards the front of the lorry. He said he was directly in its path when the driver then accelerated towards him.
Officer fired two rounds at driver, who ducked behind dashboard.
As the lorry approached, the officer discharged two rounds towards the driver, who had ducked down behind the vehicle’s dashboard. The officer then took a couple of rapid steps backwards, hoping the lorry would stop, before firing another two rounds at the lorry.
The lorry failed to stop and continued into St James’ Park where the driver got out and ran off, pursued by an officer who arrested him a short time later.
The lorry was subsequently found to contain an estimated 12,000 litres of illegal fuel. HM Customs & Excise were called to the scene to conduct a parallel investigation.
The driver of the lorry later provided an account of the incident to the Police Ombudsman’s Office. He was adamant that the officer had deliberately tried to kill him. He said the officer could easily have stepped out of the way of the lorry, and also denied deliberately trying to run the officer down.
However, when he subsequently appeared at court, the lorry driver pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, obstruction and, significantly, to two counts of attempted Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm by driving the lorry at the two officers.
Officers admitted failing to request permission for pursuit.
When interviewed about the incident, the two police officers admitted that neither of them had requested permission from Belfast Regional Control to pursue the lorry.
They stressed, however, that they had used their radio to communicate to BRC about the pursuit, and at no stage did BRC tell them to abandon it.
Further enquiries by Police Ombudsman investigators established that a civilian worker in the Control Room had failed to immediately inform the Control Room supervisor of a pursuit in progress.
However, the Police Ombudsman, Mr Al Hutchinson, also noted that “arguably staff at BRC monitoring the radio transmissions had the ability and obligation to intervene in the pursuit and advise whether to continue or to discontinue the pursuit.”
As required, the Police Ombudsman submitted a file to the Public Prosecution Service in relation to the discharge of live fire by the officer during this incident. The PPS directed that the officer should not be prosecuted.
Use of firearm unlikely to safely stop lorry.
Mr Hutchinson noted, however, that the discharge of the firearm was unlikely to “safely achieve” its purpose of stopping the lorry.
Indeed, he said that if the police officer had shot the driver, “it may have exacerbated the situation as the lorry may have gone out of control and struck the officer regardless. The risk of collateral damage to civilians and property would also have been increased.”
He added that if the officer had not placed himself in the path of the lorry, he would not have needed to make a split second decision to discharge his firearm, but also noted that the lorry driver posed a very serious risk if he was not stopped.