A woman and a boy have died after being hit by a car that was being chased by police and mounted the pavement in Penge, south-east London.
Witnesses described the aftermath of the crash on Wednesday afternoon, in which the suspected stolen car hit a group of pedestrians.
The woman, believed to be in her late 30s or early 40s, and a 10-year-old boy were declared dead at the scene and three girls were injured.
The two people killed were named locally as Rosie Cooper, and her nephew Makayah McDermott.
Police arrested a 23-year-old man on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. He remains in custody and police are appealing for witnesses.
Venissa Vassell, 18, heard sirens and a car screeching as she walked from a nearby railway station and said she immediately ran to help. She said there were twin girls aged about seven trapped under the car, a black Ford Focus, and about 20 people came to lift the car up to free them.
The girls crawled out, but another girl, aged about 11, who was later taken away by ambulance, was screaming: “I can’t feel my legs.”
Vassell said: “I did CPR on this lady. I blew in her mouth. It wasn’t working.”
Vassell said the boy who died was fine one moment, but then “by the time I came back to speak to the little girl to say ‘Your brother is all right’, he was passed out.” She said the incident “all happened too quick” and she could not explain what she had seen.
A man who lives near the crash site said a black car was being chased by two police BMWs when it tried to turn into Lennard Road.
“He lost control and ploughed into a family that was walking on the pavement down Lennard Road. People were trying to lift a car off a little girl. The police officers that were chasing were distraught,” the man said. “It was a horrific scene on a sunny afternoon in a sleepy place.”
Ilya Baxter, 23, watched from a window in his flat as police chased a young white man across the road around the corner from the crashed car. He said: “I heard the cars and saw someone pointing to the police where he went. I knocked on the window and pointed.” He said the man was hiding in the bushes, and police caught him, handcuffed him, and then went to help the injured.
Stephanie Page said she was shopping on Penge High Street and saw the car going through a red light shortly before the accident. “Another lady was crossing the road and a car sped down, nearly knocking this lady over. We were quite astonished how fast it was going.” Shortly afterwards, ambulances started arriving, she said. Friends from the area told her that the injured girls were twins.
Cordons around the crash site had been removed on Thursday morning, although two police officers remained, allowing mourners to leave floral tributes at the base of a tree nearby. One note left by an unnamed passerby read: “There are some who bring a light so bright to the world that even after they have gone the light remains.”
A man and woman left the home of the younger victim’s father at around 8am. A next door neighbour said the 10-year-old was a “lovely boy” but commented no further.
Scotland Yard said in a statement on Wednesday: “At approximately 2.05pm on Wednesday 31 August a car was in collision with a number of members of the public in Lennard Road.
“The car was being pursued by police at the time of the collision. London ambulance service and London’s air ambulance attended – two people have been pronounced dead at the scene.”
The Independent Police Complaints Commission has been informed and was sending investigators to the crash scene. Scotland Yard’s internal standards department has also been told.
A spokeswoman for London ambulance service said: “We sent multiple resources to the scene including three ambulance crews, two incident response officers, an advanced paramedic and London’s air ambulance.
“Sadly, a woman and a boy died at the scene. We treated a further three patients, all girls, at the scene for multiple injuries and they were all taken to hospital.”
Lennard Road remained closed off on Wednesday evening as police technicians in white boiler suits carried out examinations of the scene where two blue tents had been erected.
Residents looked on from outside their homes, breaking the news to neighbours who arrived home from work to Penge East station.
“My husband was passing by on a bus and saw the bodies. He’s really shaken up by it,” said one woman.
Another said that the occupants of a bus that stopped at the top of the street were among at least 20 people who helped to lift the car and free some of the trapped children.
There were 498 crashes involving a pursuit by Metropolitan police officers in London in 2015-16, up from 434 in the previous year. There were 474 such collisions in 2013-14.
In England and Wales there were 21 deaths in 20 police-related road traffic incidents in 2015-16, up from 14 the previous year. The IPCC said it was the fourth lowest figure since 2004-05.
