Police admit failings after mum and partner lay undiscovered in crashed car for days

ITV News Correspondent Geraint Vincent reports on the M9 fatal crash

Police Scotland has been fined £100,000 after admitting failings which "materially contributed" to the death of a young mother who lay undiscovered in a crashed car alongside her dead boyfriend for three days.

Lamara Bell, 25, and John Yuill, 28, died after a car crash off the M9 near Stirling, Scotland, on July 5, 2015.

Despite an emergency call being made to police over the crash, it took officers three days to attend the incident.

When officers finally arrived at the scene, Mr Yuill was found dead and Ms Bell was seriously injured. She died four days later in hospital.

It later emerged that the phone call reporting the crash was not recorded on Police Scotland's IT system.

The force pleaded guilty to health and safety failings following the deaths at the High Court in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard on Tuesday that Ms Bell was conscious and said, “help me, get me out” to a member of the public who found her in the vehicle after noticing it on July 8.

However, Ms Bell would probably have survived had she been found sooner, the High Court heard.

The office of the Chief Constable of Police Scotland admitted that it failed to provide an “adequate and reliable call-handling system” between April 1, 2013 and March 1, 2016.

It also failed to ensure the system was “not vulnerable to unacceptable risks arising from human error”, and that all relevant information reported by members of the public was recorded on an IT system, so it could be considered with a police response provided where necessary.

The force admitted that as a result, members of the public, including Mr Yuill and Ms Bell, were exposed to risks to their health and safety.

It accepted that on July 5, 2015, a police officer at the force's call-handling centre at Bilston Glen Service Centre failed to record a phone call from a member of the public.

They reported a vehicle was at the bottom of an embankment at the side of the eastbound junction nine slip road from the M80 on to the M9.

But the phone call was not recorded on any Police Scotland IT system, according to the indictment, and the failure went unnoticed with “no proper consideration of the report and no opportunity for an appropriate response from Police Scotland”.

Police Scotland admitted Ms Bell and Mr Yuill remained “unaided and exposed to the elements” in the car between July 5 and 8, 2015.

It admitted these failings “materially contributed” to the young mother's death days later on 12 July at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

Delivering the sentence, Lord Beckett said: “This case arose from terrible events in which two relatively young people died, one of them after days of severe physical suffering when she must have been in an almost unimaginable state of anxiety.

“As days and hours went by she must have been in a state of disbelief that no help arose.”

Lord Beckett said it was “unprecedented” for the police service of Scotland to have been accused and convicted in the High Court.

The judge said "the normal level of fine would reduce the normal ability of the Police Service of Scotland to protect and serve the public", and he set the fine at £100,000.

Ms Bell’s mother welcomed the conviction, saying: “The absence of answers and recognition has been the biggest strain because it is the not knowing that makes everything worse.

“It has taken a long time for this conviction to be secured but it is a huge relief that Police Scotland has finally admitted being at fault for Lamara’s death.”

Sir Stephen House, who was chief constable at the time, stepped down at the end of 2015 following controversy over the deaths.

The crash took place against a backdrop of the restructuring of police control rooms following the creation of Police Scotland.

The current Police Scotland Chief Constable, Iain Livingstone, was in court for the hearing and offered his “profound apologies and sincere condolences” to the families of Ms Bell and Mr Yuill.

Murdo Macleod QC, representing Police Scotland, said that reviews of the call handling system were carried out in the wake of the tragedy and the 38 recommendations have now been implemented in full.

He said: “Through significant investment and time and resources, concerted efforts have been made to ensure robust measures are in place to mitigate the risks and lessen the risk that something else might happen again.”