The province's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has cleared Strathroy-Caradoc police of any wrongdoing in a crash that sent a woman to hospital with serious injuries.
Investigators with the SIU determined the incident began when an officer tried to stop a vehicle that was speeding along Parkhouse Drive near Christina Road around 9:30 a.m. on October 14, 2020. The vehicle did not stop and continued on at a high rate of speed, the SIU said. The officer briefly gave chase before being told to end the pursuit.
Moments after the short-lived chase was called off, the vehicle crashed into a car on Christina Road at Longwoods Road. The force of the crash sent both vehicle into a cornfield. A 59-year-old woman in the second car had to be cut from the wreckage. She was taken to hospital with multiple serious fractures. The driver of the suspect vehicle ran from the scene.
The SIU assigned three investigators, two forensic investigators, and one collision reconstructionist to the case. They determined the police chase lasted less than two minutes and the officer was a reasonable distance away when the collision occurred. In fact, witnesses told the SIU it took the officer approximately ten seconds to arrive on the scene following the crash.
"On my assessment of the evidence, there are no reasonable grounds to believe that the [subject officer] committed a criminal offence in connection with the collision and the [woman's] injuries," SIU Director Joseph Martino said in his final reported issued on Tuesday.
Martino also noted that the officer advised the police communications centre he was in pursuit of a vehicle in a "timely fashion" which allowed a senior officer to exercise his discretion to end the chase.
"It is highly regrettable that the [woman], whose misfortune it was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, suffered serious injuries in this matter," said Martino. However, as far as the [subject officer's] potential criminal liability is concerned, I am satisfied on the aforementioned-record that the officer neither caused the collision nor conducted himself in a fashion that transgressed the limits of care prescribed by the criminal law."
