A police constable who responded to a 999 call which ended in a crash that left a teenager severely brain damaged told a disciplinary hearing he was ‘justified’ in breaching orders to remain within the speed limit.
PC Boris McDohl defied his ‘basic’ police driving qualification which stipulated he abide by the laws of the road like any other civilian road user, the hearing was told. The rookie officer, who joined the force a year before and who had only completed his ‘basic’ police driver training five weeks earlier, was captured topping 58mph in a 30mph-limit zone on a dark and rainy Boxing Day evening in Stockport in 2020.
The police car he was following to the incident, driven by PC Sarah De Meulemeester, crashed into Khia Whitehead, then 15, causing catastrophic injuries which left him in a ‘permanent vegetative state’.
In front of members of the Whitehead family at the hearing, which began at GMP’s headquarters in Newton Heath on Monday, rookie officer PC McDohl said he had been ‘justified’ in breaching the rules to keep up with another colleague so the officer did not have to confront a cocaine-fuelled man with a knife on his own.
De Meulemeester, of Mill Court, Chinley, Derbyshire, was found guilty of causing serious injury by dangerous driving following a trial in 2023, and was jailed for 30 months. The 26-year-old, who also had only ‘basic’ GMP driving permissions and was not allowed to go above the speed limit, was over twice the 30mph limit when she hit then-15-year-old Khia.
PC McDohl said breaking rules was ‘justified’
PC McDohl, 34, had been an airport fuel systems engineer before joining the force in 2019. He told the disciplinary hearing he joined because he knew one of the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack, which claimed 22 innocent lives and left hundreds seriously hurt.
The officer – who was in the patrol car immediately behind PC De Meulemeester – told the hearing he passed his driving test aged 17 and had never been involved in any accidents before the Boxing Day incident in 2020.
Questioned by his barrister Philip Barnes, the PC agreed he was aware he only had a ‘basic’ driving authority from GMP. The officer said he was at the end of a 14 or 15-hour shift when the crash happened.
Based on the Stockport division as a ‘response officer’, PC McDohl said at the time he was working on a force-wide initiative to tackle licenced premises breaking Covid restrictions.
The officer confirmed he and a second officer on the same initiative, PC Michael Blakey, had been dispatched to Marple to help escort a ‘violent’ prisoner back to Cheadle Heath police station.
Afterwards, the pair were sitting in their respective patrol cars when each became aware of reports of a ‘domestic disturbance’ in Adswood via their radios, the disciplinary hearing was told.
With a ‘skeleton staff’ on duty, a single officer, PC De Meulemeester, was dispatched to the scene but PC McDohl said he and his colleague agreed in conversation it was ‘not appropriate’ for her to respond alone and to provide her with ‘back up’ and also head to Adswood.
En route, a radio message said the ‘violent’ male had a knife and was ‘under the influence of cocaine’ and all three vehicles began to speed up, the officer told the hearing.
Asked why he decided to speed up, the officer said: “I started to realise that the situation we were trying to avoid in the first place, to have a single crewed officer arriving with no back up, was exactly going to unfold and happen anyway.”
His colleague PC Blakey, who had an ‘advanced’ driving authority from GMP allowing him to go above the speed limit to emergencies, overtook PC De Meulemeester but PC McDohl said he was concerned PC Blakey was not armed with a Taser stun gun and had ‘limited means’ of defending himself, and so decided decided to turn in his own car’s emergency ‘blues and twos’ equipment and to match the lead officer’s speed and course. It was the first time he had activated such equipment, the hearing was told.
PC McDohl said he decided at the time it was ‘justified’ to breach GMP’s policy on what ‘basic’ drivers are allowed to do. He claimed his decision was ‘allowed’ under a national policing ‘decision-making model’.
PC denies lying about speed he was driving
The officer told the hearing he attempted to overtake PC De Meulemeester by moving into the ‘wrong’ lane as there was ‘no oncoming traffic’ but her patrol car made an ‘unexpected’ move into the same lane to go by another car. Within ‘a matter of seconds’, her patrol car struck Khia while his own car mounted the pavement to avoid the rear of PC De Meulemeester’s car and hit a pole, he said.
He said he scrambled out of his damaged car through a rear seat and saw a ‘casualty’ on the floor who he thought had died. He confirmed he performed CPR on Khia until help arrived and pressed a button on the ‘black box’ recording device in his car so no data would be lost.
PC McDolh said after he returned to the police station he was asked to complete a ‘brief statement’ about what he recalled but did not have enough information to include the speed he had been driving and did not mention he had activated his car’s ‘blues and twos’. He said he thought he would be asked for these details in a ‘full account’ to be provided later.
The officer said in the immediate aftermath he could only recall ‘the most traumatic side’ of what happened and his recollection was ‘a considerable blur’. He said he provided a detailed account when he was formally interviewed in March 2021.
Barney Branston, representing GMP at the hearing, suggested to the officer he had ‘deliberately omitted’ from his first statement that he had been speeding and PC McDohl answered: “That’s not how I recall it.”
The barrister also suggested to the the officer he was ‘trying to hide what you had done’ by not including in his initial statement that he had activated his ‘blues and twos’ in contravention of his ‘basic’ police driving qualification. “No, not at all,” said the officer.
PC McDohl said an official from the Police Federation, the police ‘union’ which represents rank-and-file cops, had ‘added’ into his statement that he was driving at ‘normal road speed’ in his initial account of the incident to avoid his statement becoming ‘too convoluted’.
The barrister suggested to the officer he ‘knew’ he had not been driving at ‘normal road speed’ and quoted to PC McDohl an answer he gave in his formal March 2021 interview when he said he had been driving at ‘normal road speed’ before his emergency equipment had been activated.
The officer denied that what he had said was ‘simply a lie’ and that he had acted ‘without a care for anybody’.
Members of the Whitehead family left the hearing room while a compilation of CCTV of the incident was played.
Outlining the case against the PC on behalf of GMP earlier, Mr Branston told the hearing the constable faced two charges, one that he breached force orders and instructions and the other concerning ‘honesty and integrity’.
The first charge concerned the ‘manner of his driving’ on the night in that he ‘wilfully ignored limitations’ as a ‘basic’ police driver. The other concerned an allegation that he ‘deliberately crafted’ an initial statement about the incident by leaving out that he had been speeding and that he had activated his emergency ‘blues and two’ equipment.
The officer contests the charges. The chair of the three-person disciplinary panel, Paul Forster, earlier dismissed an application for PC McDohl to be granted anonymity in press reports of the proceedings. Addressing the Whitehead family, he said the incident had been ‘properly and truly tragic’.
Proceeding.
