A police officer’s decision to engage in a ‘spontaneous pursuit’ of a young couple’s van late at night contributed to a crash which claimed both their lives, an inquest jury has found today.
Ellie Marsden, 20, and her boyfriend Ryan Duffy, 24, were found dead hours after their vehicle had left the road and collided with a tree near Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria.
Jurors found Mr Duffy – who was driving the couple’s Citroen Berlingo van – was likely to have become aware he was being pursued and may have driven accordingly.
A post mortem examination found he was between two and three times the legal drink-drive limit, and cocaine and ketamine were also in his system.
Jurors found there were four contributory factors to the tragedy: Mr Duffy’s intoxicated state, driver error and the fact that neither he nor Ms Marsden were wearing seat belts.
The last factor was the decision by PC Craig Stevenson to follow the couple’s van.
Jurors said: ‘On the balance of probabilities the police officer was engaged in a spontaneous pursuit of Ryan, and this contributed to causing the crash’.
The couple, of Golborne, near Wigan, Greater Manchester, had driven up to Cumbria on September 4, 2021, for a short break.
They had booked in for a night at Appleby’s historic castle hotel – with Mr Duffy telling the duty manager: ‘I just want to make her happy with a night away’.
The couple visited the nearby town centre Hare and Hounds pub for two hours. At around 12-30am, CCTV footage captured them leaving the premises and returning to the Citroen Berlingo, which drove on to a main town road heading towards the castle.
Their presence was also noted by PC Stevenson, a standard response officer on patrol who decided to follow and monitor the van’s movements. He watched as the driver went the wrong way along a one-way street.
PC Stevenson continued following, seeking to stop the van and speak with the driver. His own Ford Transit vehicle data showed he repeatedly travelled above the speed limit both in Appleby and then out on to rural country roads as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to catch up with the Berlingo.
Both vehicles turned on to a country lane known as Long Rigg. At that stage, PC Stevenson lost sight of the van. He stopped and sent a radio message to his control room. He was a mere 170 metres from where the crashed Berlingo was later found at 7.30am the following morning.
‘Just had a vehicle make off from me on the back roads from Appleby,’ the officer reported, before turning around.
The inquest heard PC Stevenson never managed to log the registration number of the Berlingo nor the vehicle’s make during a four-minute journey.
He told jurors the opportunity to activate blue lights to attempt a safe stoppage did not arise.
PC Stevenson confirmed he was trained to follow and stop vehicles but not to engage in any pursuit which, he explained, was a “high risk activity” for any officer or people in a subject vehicle.
At no stage, he told jurors, did he believe he was involved in a “spontaneous pursuit”, as defined by College of Policing policy. This dictates that if a subject driver is aware of police presence, fails to stop and a pursuit begins, a non-trained pursuit officer must immediate inform a control room and disengage.
“I didn’t believe it was a pursuit,” PC Stevenson told assistant coroner Joseph Hart during the week-long inquest.
But jurors unanimously decided Mr Duffy took evasive action, resulting in the spontaneous pursuit.
Relatives of Ms Marsden wept as the conclusions were delivered by a jury foreman.
Coroner Mr Hart offered his sympathies to the loved ones of care assistant Ellie and Ryan, an engineer for water company United Utilities.
He said: ‘There is literally nothing I can say to diminish your loss and the tragedy of your loss.’
