Judge pressures police over car-chase deaths

The country's top policemen were summoned to a meeting with the judge heading the Independent Police Conduct Authority following the latest police pursuit fatalities last weekend.

Authority chairwoman Justice Lowell Goddard, QC, pressed Police Commissioner Howard Broad and his deputy, Viv Rickard, to continue to review police pursuit policy.

The meeting was held on Monday at the IPCA, three days after two teenagers died following a police pursuit sparked by a minor offence.

Their deaths brought the total this year to 16, from 11 fatal pursuits - the worst on record.

The previous highest annual total was six deaths in 2008.

Mr Broad had announced in June - after the fourth review by police in six years - that pursuit policy needed only minor tweaking.

Eight people have died since, in four fatal pursuits.

In their review, the police ignored two key recommendations made by the IPCA, which did its own study of pursuit fatalities last year.

Justice Goddard told the Weekend Herald the IPCA still believed they should be put into policy.

They are:

* The risk to public safety from not stopping an offender should be the principal factor justifying a decision to pursue.

* The decision to pursue should be based on known facts, rather than general suspicion or speculation.

Such policies would likely see a marked reduction in the number of pursuits, which have increased from 500 in 2003 to 2500 last year.

All 11 fatal pursuits this year arose from relatively minor offences, mostly speeding.

The safety of police, those being pursued and innocent third parties were of sufficient importance to "merit ongoing review of pursuit policy", Justice Goddard said.

"I held separate meetings with the Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioner.

"I expressed the need for further dialogue over this issue, which they concurred with."

Inspector Rob Morgan, acting national manager of road policing, said the increased number of deaths would not change police policy as fatalities at the end of pursuits were "a bit random".

He said 23 per cent of pursuits last year were of stolen vehicles and therefore of criminals.

* Read the IPCA report at ipca.govt.nz under 2009 publications