Family of drink-drive victim speak out on police blunder probe

Members of the family of Julian Waskiewicz, a 56 year old killed when hit by a car while walking his dogs in Albrighton in 2014, said that any investigation into Staffordshire Police failures should be independent.

It comes after the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced it would not be looking into police handling of the investigation, despite a review highlighting blunders.

See also: Police face accusations over dog walker's death

The review of the collision investigation found there was a series of errors in how two forces handled the incident, including the failure to carry out the drink-drive "back calculation" procedure, and poor communication between the officers involved.

The matter was only referred by Staffordshire Police to the IPCC in June this year and the watchdog is now recommending that the force carry out its own investigation into the claims by some of the victim's relatives.

Mr Waskiewicz was taken to hospital in a critical condition but died six days later. It was just six weeks after his wife Jill had died after a two-year cancer battle.

The driver of the car, a 63-year-old man from Shifnal, was not prosecuted for any offence. He had been drinking before the collision.

Since the tragedy the family has consistently raised concerns with both West Mercia and Staffordshire forces regarding the crash investigation and feel the issues have not been resolved despite a review carried out by Warwickshire Police.

The accident happened on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border and officers from both forces arrived at the scene. But the subsequent inquiry described a series of blunders that hampered the investigation that was led by Staffordshire and prevented justice being done.

A statement from Mr Waskiewicz's relatives said: "We see no benefit in this stage unless we get something genuinely independent and that is not happening. Had the IPCC taken it up we would say this is progress."

And they said they were disappointed by a meeting held last week with civilian staff from Staffordshire Police's professional standards unit.

"No officer associated with the investigation attended and there was no representation from West Mercia Police despite the fact that West Mercia officers took responsibility for the driver on the evening of the collision, failed to conduct the count back and made the decision to release him from custody without taking an initial account or checking with the senior investigating officer.

"The meeting was requested by the family as we wished to separate the review findings from the next steps with Staffordshire Police. Our concerns have been interpreted by Staffordshire Police to be complaints yet they are still requesting us to list specific and detailed allegations against individual officers. This is despite the fact that we have still not been given full disclosure of police policies, procedures or documents relating to the initial investigation into Julian's death.

"We see this as a completely unnecessary re-working of material that we have provided on countless occasions previously."

IPCC spokesman Dylan Evans said: "This matter was voluntarily referred to the IPCC by Staffordshire Police on June 2 this year and following a careful assessment it was sent back to the force on June 7 to carry out a local investigation."

The review found that West Mercia Police officers failed to carry out correct procedures that would have proved the motorist was over the drink-drive limit. It recommends that all police officers are given extra training on how to carry out drink-drive tests.