Complaint Handling Reviews

The Complaints

The complaints in this case arose following the death of the applicant’s mother as a result of a road traffic collision. We have reviewed the handling of eight complaints, namely that:

1. officers carried out insufficient enquiries into a serious road traffic collision;

2. the applicant’s mother’s injuries were not properly identified at the location of the collision;

3. the vehicle which collided with the applicant’s mother was removed from the location very quickly;

4. no collision investigation was carried out;

5. no family liaison officer was appointed following the collision;

6. statements were not noted from key witnesses to the collision;

7. the driver’s phone records and tracker for the vehicle were not checked; and

8. the Procurator Fiscal (PF) was not provided with the full circumstances of the collision.

Police Scotland’s Decision

Police Scotland did not uphold any of the applicant’s complaints.

Our Findings

We have found that Police Scotland handled six of the applicant’s complaints to a reasonable standard (1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8) but not so the other two (2 and 5).

We have made 2 recommendations to address the shortcomings in Police Scotland’s handling of the complaints. We recommend that further enquiries are carried out in relation to both complaints 2 and 5, following which a further response should be sent to the applicant.

Our recommendations should be implemented by Police Scotland within two months of the date of this report.

Police Bodies : Police Scotland