Police failure led to 'incomprehensable' suffering in M9 crash deaths
An "organisational failure" in police call handling procedures meant a woman endured "almost incomprehensible" suffering, after her crashed car lay undiscovered for days, a fatal accident inquiry has found.
Lamara Bell, a mother-of-two, and John Yuill, a father-of-five, died after the car they were in left the M9 near Stirling on July 5 2015, as they drove back from a camping trip.
They lay in their Renault Clio for three days before being discovered on July 8, despite police having being alerted to the incident on the day it happened.
Mr Yuill, aged 28, was pronounced dead at the scene. Ms Bell, aged 25, died four days later at hospital.
The inquiry heard that, while Mr Yuill suffered unsurvivable injuries in the crash, Ms Bell would probably have survived if she had received medical attention on July 5 - albeit with potential long-term neurological deficits.
The failure of Police Scotland to properly log a call made to report the crash had "fatal consequences for Lamara Bell," according to Sheriff James Williamson. "Her suffering over a period of three days, terribly injured by conscious, is almost incomprehensible," he said.
'Confused, fractious working environment'
In his determination published following the fatal accident inquiry, Sheriff Williamson said there was no system of reconciling information recorded by officers in notebooks with action taken.
"The failure of Police Scotland to properly risk assess the call handling procedures and have a system of reconciliation was an organisational failure" which "led to the safety of the public being compromised and to the events of July 5, 2015," he said.
The inquiry also found a police officer who failed to log a call reporting the incident was inadequately trained.
Sheriff Williamson noted the Bilston Glen police call handling centre was under pressure that summer amid staffing shortages.
Police sergeant Brian Henry, now retired, volunteered to do overtime at Bilston Glen, arriving into what the sheriff described as a "confused, fractious working environment."
On July 5, he took a call from farmer John Wilson reporting a car off the road and recorded it in his police notebook, but he failed to log it into the case management system and no further action was taken.
That meant that "Lamara Bell was left in a vehicle by the side of a major motorway in Scotland suffering devastating injuries," he said.
"These injuries, together with a delay in rescuing and treating her, led to her death."
The car was eventually discovered after another member of the public reported it to the police on July 8, and emergency services went to investigate.
But Sheriff Williamson stressed that "it would be wrong to interpret that as blaming Brian Henry," who he said had been "inadequately trained and left largely unsupervised to operate a system that allowed for human error to go undetected."
He said the failures took place "over a lengthy period of time, during which the opportunity to resolve them was lost."
'Significant improvements' in call handling system
Since the incident in 2015, the police Contact, Command and Control Division has been transformed into an "efficient, tightly-controlled and sophisticated" network, Sheriff Williamson said, that is better able to serve and protect the public than in 2015.
He said that while it is not "risk free" and still "has a susceptibility to human failure", "the risk of that failure going undetected is now marginal."
The inquiry came after Ms Bell's family was awarded more than £1 million in damages from Police Scotland in a civil settlement in December 2021. In September 2021, the force apologised after being fined £100,000 by the high court in Edinburgh.
Responding to the inquiry, the force's Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs said "Lamara Bell and John Yuill's deaths were a tragedy and my first thoughts today are with their family and friends.
"Police Scotland failed Lamara and John in 2015 and I repeat the personal apology made previously to their loved ones. We did not keep them safe in their time of need as was our duty and for that I am truly sorry."
He said the force had fully participated in all inquiries since the incident to "identify what went wrong and to do everything we possibly can" to stop it being repeated.
"Sheriff Williamson's findings highlight the significant improvements which have been made to our call handling systems," he added.
"We are studying the determination in detail for any learning which will form part of this continuous improvement."
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