Police pay £2k to man held after fatal crash

10 hours ago

Caroline Lowbridge, East Midlands

A man who reported a fatal crash has been awarded GBP2,000 in compensation by police after he was kept at the scene and questioned under caution.

Sohale Rahman said he was already traumatised by seeing the body of a cyclist and thought he had been arrested on suspicion of causing his death.

He made a civil claim against Nottinghamshire Police saying his detention was unlawful, as was the seizure of his car.

The force settled the claim without admitting liability, but told the BBC the payment was "considered appropriate".

Witnesses are generally not cautioned by police, and according to police practices Mr Rahman should have been told he had not been arrested - but he insists he was not.

He should also have been allowed to leave when he asked to.

"I thought I was being arrested, because that's what you hear on TV, when you get read your rights," said Mr Rahman.

"I didn't realise that's just a caution but that's not being arrested."

Mr Rahman said the police officer investigating told him she had to "rule out murder first" and then go down the list from the most serious offence.

"I thought I might be a possible murder suspect," he told the BBC.

How did the crash happen?

Mr Rahman was driving along the A617 near Upton on 15 May 2018, at 21:47 BST, when the crash happened.

As he approached traffic lights at the junction with Main Road, he said he was overtaken by a BMW.

Mr Rahman then saw the BMW hit a cyclist who had started crossing the road at the traffic lights, despite them being green.

Mr Rahman said a van then passed his Audi on the wrong side of the road, stopped ahead of the parked BMW, and the van driver took the BMW driver's keys.

The BMW driver was later found to have been speeding, prosecuted for causing death by careless driving, and given a four-month suspended prison sentence.

What did Mr Rahman do?

Mr Rahman got out of his car and approached the cyclist, who was lying in the middle of the road.

"I was running and I stopped in my tracks because I could see that he looked like he had been killed," said Mr Rahman.

"It was upsetting to say the least.

It shook me."

Mr Rahman called police at 21:51 and drove his car forward to stop any cars approaching from the right.

He also stood in the middle of the road to stop motorists potentially driving over the cyclist, he said.

What did police do?

According to Mr Rahman, a male police officer arrived minutes later and stopped all traffic from entering the scene.

Mr Rahman said the officer told him and two nurses, who had been on their way to work, that they could not leave.

He said the van driver was allowed to leave - although does not remember what time that happened - and that the nurses were able to leave at about 23:00.

However, he claimed when he asked to go home to Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, at 23:15, he was told he could not leave.

Then, at about midnight, a female police officer took his statement under caution.

At about 00:30, he was told his car was being seized to check for debris underneath, despite telling officers he had not driven through the debris.

He also told police he did not consent to them taking his vehicle, he added.

Police took him to Newark Police Station, by which time it was about 01:00, and he had to pay GBP174 for a taxi back home.

Was racism a factor?

Mr Rahman believes he was treated differently from other civilians at the scene because he was the only non-white person present.

His Audi TT was seized to check for debris underneath, but the van was not seized despite it having been driven through the accident scene.

When asked about this by the BBC, police refuted that Mr Rahman was treated differently because of his race, but did not explain why he was treated differently from the van driver.

Iain Gould, Mr Rahman's solicitor, said: "Such treatment may not have been motivated by racism, but in the context of the officers' wholly unreasonable behaviour, it was perfectly understandable that my client should perceive it in this way."

What have police said in response?

Nottinghamshire Police said its professional standards department conducted an investigation and found all officers had acted appropriately.

A force spokesperson said: "Mr Rahman was identified as the sole occupant of an Audi TT that was in the vicinity of a fatal collision along the A617 near Upton on 15 May 2018.

"Due to possible debris damage and the position of his vehicle, it was necessary for the vehicle to be seized for a temporary time to ensure the underneath of the vehicle had no cross-contamination.

"As is standard procedure, Mr Rahman was spoken to under caution at the scene but was not arrested.

"A complaint was subsequently received from Mr Rahman and a compensation claim has now been settled.

"All cases which deal with claims for compensation are reviewed carefully and payments are only made where it is considered appropriate to do so."

Is a caution 'standard procedure'?

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) sets out when police should give cautions before taking statements.

According to PACE Code C[1], a caution must be given to "a person whom there are grounds to suspect of an offence" before they are questioned about that offence, even if the person is not under arrest.

The caution informs the interviewee of their right to remain silent and warns them that anything they say may be used as evidence in court.

Mr Rahman believes police should have taken his statement without cautioning him, as he witnessed the collision rather than being involved in it.

Prominent legal scholar Michael Zander KC, author of Zander on PACE: The Police and Criminal Evidence Act, agreed with Mr Rahman when the BBC asked him about the case.

"It would have been better policing to have asked him for his account of what happened without administering a caution, leaving cautioning as something to be done only if what they were told gave rise to a reasonable belief that he might be a suspect," said Prof Zander.

Code C also says police must tell someone they are not under arrest whenever they caution someone who is not under arrest.

Prof Zander said Mr Rahman should "absolutely" have been allowed to leave when he asked.

"A person who is not under arrest is free to leave," he said.

"There is no legal requirement on a citizen to help the police with their inquiries, though one's civic duty makes it desirable to do so for a reasonable period.

"Mr Rahman was kept there for a wholly unreasonable period of time.

"The fact that the police paid GBP2,000 compensation was acknowledgment that they had behaved incorrectly."

References

1. ^ PACE Code C (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)