The man who made the initial call to report the M9 crash that Scottish police failed to follow up, leaving the dead and dying victims in their vehicle for more than three days, has spoken of his feelings of guilt.
As the scale of the crisis engulfing Police Scotland’s call-handling operation across the country becomes apparent and calls grow for the head of Police Scotland to consider his position, the local man said he felt guilty for not following up his call after he noticed the car had not been moved days later.
Speaking to the BBC, the caller, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he called the non-emergency 101 number at 11.30am on 5 July to report that a blue Renault Clio had left the road on the M9 southbound near junction nine at Bannockburn. He was told that officers would investigate.
Police Scotland chief constable, Sir Stephen House, has since admitted that the call was not entered into police systems. It was only on Wednesday morning, more than three days after the crash, that officers discovered John Yuill and Lamara Bell still in their vehicle in a wooded area beside the motorway after another report that a car had left the road.
Twenty-eight-year-old Yuill, the father of two young boys, was pronounced dead at the scene. His girlfriend Bell, who was placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a head injury and broken bones in the crash and kidney damage as a result of dehydration, died at the weekend at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital in Glasgow.
The initial caller said the officer dealing with him sounded as if he knew what he was doing and was not dismissive. Details were taken of the location, described by the caller as “on the fork, between the M9 and M80”. The car, he said, was not visible from the motorway.
He added that there was “nothing to suggest they would not take it seriously” and he “assumed the police would check it out”.
He said he became concerned on Monday and Tuesday when the car was still there with no police tape in evidence, but thought it must be awaiting recovery. He said he was “aware of what was being said about whether he should have done more”, but had believed police were handling it.
Officers from Police Scotland have since questioned the man for several hours, and he has also been interviewed by the police investigations and review commissioner (Pirc), which has already begun an inquiry into the tragedy.
On Sunday, Scotland’s justice secretary, Michael Matheson, announced that he had formally directed Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) to undertake a “thorough and speedy” review of all police call-handling, after opposition parties and police officers alleged that concerns about emergency calls being dropped or mishandled had not been dealt with.
Both Matheson and Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, have given their backing to House, but he faced growing pressure on Monday over the force’s handling of the fatal accident.
Scottish Labour’s acting leader, Iain Gray, said: “It appears that as horrific as this case is, it was sadly only a matter of time before something like this happened because of the problems at the heart of Police Scotland. Those problems are systemic and go well beyond this single incident.”
Calling for House to seriously consider his position, Gray said: “The Scottish government and Police Scotland have together presided over cuts to services, the loss of civilian police staff and a lack of transparency over stop and search and armed policing.
“In addition, there are regular concerns raised about the general culture that exists at Police Scotland. Again and again these problems have been raised in parliament, only to have the Scottish government dismiss concerns. This cannot go on.”
Willie Rennie, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, called for the immediate suspension of the centralisation programme – which has already seen the closure of four control centres, with two more planned by the end of 2015 – until the review of police call handling is complete.
Rennie, who has previously raised problems at police control rooms at first minister’s questions after being contacted by serving officers and civilian staff with concerns about workload pressures, said: “There needs to be an inquiry into the wider operational issues. For those at the Scottish Police Federation conference earlier this year, it was clear that officers were spitting mad at the targets imposed on them now. They are allowed very little discretion in dealing with calls and all their training is almost no longer necessary.”
The general secretary of the Scottish police federation, Calum Steele, told the Guardian that police officers in all areas of the service were “working longer hours, working harder than ever before and have greater demands placed on them, against a background of shrinking budgets”.
Steele said: “There will doubtless be uncomfortable findings for Police Scotland, although human error can never be designed out of a system. But we are keen to establish whether this is a consequence of something more systemic, and we have a clear desire that the investigation is undertaken with a view to learning from mistakes rather than scapegoating.”
Bell’s brother, Martin, posted on Facebook earlier on Monday morning that he was “blown away by the effort and time our community in Falkirk is putting into making the loss of my sister as painless as possible for my family”.
Friends and local wellwishers have already started collecting donations to help with funeral arrangements. He said: “Just feels like a bad dream right now it really does but all your kind words and efforts are helping so much.”
