To

GM Mayor Andy Burnham,

GM Deputy Mayor Beverley Hughes,

Members of the GM Police, Fire and Crime Panel,

Members of the GM Independent Police Ethics Committee,

Members of the GM Race Equality Panel,

The Independent Office of Police Conduct

We are writing to register significant concerns about the rapid increase in deaths following pursuits initiated by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and call for a ‘no chase’ policy for nonviolent and minor traffic offences. Since September 2020, at least eight people – Patrick ‘Paddy’ Connors (36), Thomas ‘Tommy’ Sharp (29), Shae Marlow (16), Kyle Hudson (16), Ronaldo Johnson (17), Diyar Khoshnaw (24), Devonte Scott (18), and Brandon Geasley Pryde (18) – have died following pursuits by GMP officers. To put this figure in context, the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) reported a total of twenty fatalities following police pursuit in all of England and Wales between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. The majority of those who have lost their lives in Greater Manchester have been young men, disproportionately from racially minoritised populations including Gypsy, Roma, Traveler (GRT) communities.

Understanding this escalation in deaths following police pursuit is a matter of extreme urgency for those directly affected as well as for communities across Greater Manchester. However, there has been little acknowledgement of this crisis by our democratically elected representatives who recently approved a controversial increase to the police precept supported by only 23% of those consulted to fund an additional 438 police officers, with 60 of them dedicated to road safety specifically. The growing number of deaths following police pursuits indicates that police drivers constitute a real threat to road safety that requires urgent attention and action.

The College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice (APP) guidelines indicate that when initiating a pursuit officers should determine whether it is ‘justified’ and ‘proportionate’. According to the APP, ‘The key consideration is to ask is this pursuit necessary, balanced against threat, risk and harm for which the subject driver is being (or about to be) pursued? If the decision is made to engage in pursuit because it is in the public interest to protect life, prevent or to apprehend an offender, then it must be conducted with proportionality and due regard for the circumstances.’ However, these are merely guidelines and officers are afforded considerable discretion when it comes to determining whether a pursuit should be initiated. Studies show that the vast majority of police pursuits in England and Wales are initiated for minor traffic violations (IPCC, 2007; Best, 2002; Best and Eves, 2004) with a growing number resulting in unnecessary death or serious injury to the drivers, passengers, people in other vehicles, and pedestrians. Moreover, recent coroner’s inquests have raised significant concerns about the inappropriate and disproportionate continuation of pursuits by GMP’s officers.

Unfortunately, the IOPC – the supposedly ‘independent’ body tasked with investigating deaths following police contact – has repeatedly shown an inability and unwillingness to hold police drivers accountable. Of the ninety-seven investigations into road traffic incidents completed between 1 April 1, and 30 September 2018 only two officers were prosecuted for pursuit-related incidents. Despite this low prosecution rate, the Conservative Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill – under intense lobbying from the Police Federation – has proposed reforms to the Road Traffic Act 1988 that are likely to make it even harder to hold police accountable by further lowering the standards to which police drivers are held.

In light of these inherent risks and the absence of alternative modes of recourse, we urge you to pay attention to the concerns raised by families of those killed by police pursuits in Greater Manchester, many of whom will be participating in coroner’s inquest hearings over the coming months. We also ask that you consider alternatives to the current police pursuit guidelines that afford officers considerable discretion in decision-making relating to the initiation of pursuits. Studies conducted in other national contexts – including Canada, Australia, and the United States – have deemed the risks associated with high-speed police pursuit to be too great to justify the immediate physical apprehension of motorists who flee the police for theft or minor traffic offences. On this basis, public officials in major cities such as Washington D.C. and Cincinnati have revised their pursuit policies to restrict the circumstances under which pursuits can be initiated resulting in significantly fewer pursuits, collisions, deaths and injuries. We ask you to do the same and halt this dangerous escalation in deaths following police pursuit in our city.