KEY POINTS:
A grieving father is demanding answers after police finally admitted an officer had been pursuing a car that crashed more than a year ago, killing Jamie McElrea.
Mark McElrea's 17-year-old son died in a high-speed crash at Dairy Flat, north of Auckland, on Easter Monday, April 9, 2007. Until last month, police denied they had been chasing a Subaru WRX being driven by Troy Anderson at up to 160km/h and in which Jamie, Kayla Hewison and Matthew Anderson were passengers. Constable Gavin MacDonnell, the lone officer in an unmarked police car involved in the incident, said there had been no chase.
But after witnesses and Hewison gave McElrea a different version of events, he collected signed witness statements and fire and ambulance reports. McElrea put a list of more than 100 questions to police last year.
Senior Sergeant Nadene Richmond, of the Waitemata police professional standards team, gave responded to some on May 23. "My findings are that, according to the definition in the Police Pursuit Policy of when a pursuit is commenced, a pursuit had commenced, was abandoned and then re-commenced," she wrote.
She said MacDonnell had stopped at traffic lights on East Coast Rd when he saw the WRX travelling at "particularly excessive" speeds. He had not obtained permission to give chase. The police communications centre "was not advised of the pursuit."
She said the chase was abandoned, but when he saw the Subaru stopped in traffic, MacDonnell had activated his lights and siren and given chase.
Witnesses had told police the Subaru had been travelling at speeds of up to 160km/h.
Richmond said Anderson had lost control and the Subaru had rolled and hit a bank. Jamie had been thrown out, hitting a concrete power pole.
A coronial autopsy found he had sustained injuries including a fractured skull, brain oedema, subdural haemorrhage and herniation. He had died next day at Auckland Hospital.
Hewison and Anderson, in the back seat and not wearing seatbelts, had been thrown clear, Hewison ending up in a ditch and Anderson in the middle of the road.
The police Serious Crash Unit said Jamie's seatbelt had failed to stop him being ejected because his seat had been reclined back.
Anderson was convicted of reckless driving causing death, reckless driving causing injury, driving while disqualified and failing to stop for police. He was sentenced on March 18 to two years and six months in jail and disqualified from driving for four years.
The Independent Police Conduct Authority said on Friday it was waiting to review the police file.
The authority can make recommendations to the Police Commissioner who then must tell them what action he proposes. If that action is not deemed suitable the authority must tell the attorney-general and Minister of Police.
McElrea and his partner Rae Travis are demanding an investigation into MacDonnell's actions. They also want a coroner's inquest but in a letter to McElrea, Coroner Dr Murray Jamieson said there would be no inquest because coroners did not hold inquests into "deaths that have already been the subject of judicial consideration by other courts".
McElrea and Travis have hired lawyer John Moroney and are considering a private prosecution.
"People need to know this is what our system is," Travis said. "This won't bring Jamie back but we just want answers."
DANGEROUS PURSUITS
A review released last year found that 12 people died and 120 were seriously injured in police chases between April 2004 and May 2007.
Fourteen of those injured were innocent members of the public and all those killed were in cars trying to escape police.
The review was prompted by a number of high-profile cases last year including one in which three teens were killed after their car left the St Lukes off-ramp on the northwestern motorway in Auckland and smashed into a tree on Christmas Eve, 2006.
Police officer Aaron Holmes was charged with aggravated careless use of a motor vehicle causing injury after an incident last August, which left 13-year-old Farhat Buksh with serious brain injuries.
Court documents show Holmes hit a post that injured Farhat during a chase in Mt Albert. He has appeared before a defended hearing and should know his fate later this month.
