Police fined £100,000 for failing young mother who died waiting three days in crashed car with dead boyfriend

‘Finally, we can say Lamara has justice’, family says

Police Scotland admit failing in deaths of Lamara Bell (right) and John Yuill (left) (Police Scotland/PA)

Police Scotland has been fined £100,000 after admitting failings that contributed to the death of a young mother who lay undiscovered with her partner with three days following a crash on the M9.

Lamara Bell, 25, and John Yuill, 28, died after their car left the motorway near Stirling on July 5, 2015.

Despite a call being to police from a witness reporting the vehicle, a blunder at the call handling centre meant it took three days for the force to respond and. when officers finally arrived, Mr Yuill was dead while Ms Bell died four days later in hospital.

The force pleaded guilty to a charge under the Health and Safety act at the High Court in Edinburgh, and admitted “corporate criminal liability”.

Delivering the sentence, Lord Beckett said: “This case arose from terrible events in which two relatively young people died, one of them after days of severe physical suffering when she must have been in an almost unimaginable state of anxiety.

“As days and hours went by she must have been in a state of disbelief that no help arose.”

In a statement, Ms Bell’s mother, Diane Bell, welcomed the conviction in an emotional statement.

"The absence of answers and recognition has been the biggest strain because it is the not knowing that makes everything worse,” she said.

Diane Bell, the mother of Lamara Bell, outside Edinburgh High Court (PA Wire/Andrew Milligan)

"It has taken a long time for this conviction to be secured but it is a huge relief that Police Scotland has finally admitted being at fault for Lamara’s death.”

"I’d like to thank everyone who has supported us since 2015. Our family and friends, the local community, our legal team and also the media whose spotlight helped make sure the failures that led to Lamara’s death could not be swept under the rug."

She added: "Finally, we can say - Lamara has justice."

The force pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 and the chief constable at the time of the incident, Sir Stephen House, has since stepped down from his role.

The court heard Mr Yuill and Ms Bell went on a camping trip with friends to Loch Earn. When they failed to return home by evening, their parents called the police and a missing persons investigation was launched.

The court heard this was conducted "efficiently" and that one line of inquiry was that the couple had been involved in a crash as Mr Yuill was an "inexperienced" driver.

Prosecutor Ashley Edwards QC told the court a member of the public noticed a blue car partly obscured by bushes off the motorway and called police at 11.29am on July 5 to report it but the call handler did not create an incident for this call on the Storm computer system.

On July 8, another member of the public noticed the car and went to investigate.

Ms Edwards said: "On closer inspection he saw it was a blue car with two occupants. He saw a female moving her arms and moaning. She said, 'help me, get me out' and he tried to reassure her and called 999."

Emergency services attended and Ms Bell, who was in the passenger seat, was airlifted to hospital with serious injuries including to her skull and brain, and developed acute meningitis.

Sir Stephen House, who was chief constable at the time, stepped down at the end of 2015 following controversy over the deaths.

The crash took place against a backdrop of the restructuring of police control rooms following the creation of Police Scotland.

This saw control rooms in Glenrothes and Stirling closed in early 2015 and their work transferred to Bilston Glen, however, many staff did not want to relocate, leading to concerns about insufficient staffing.

Serving police officers who were trained in the Storm system to call handler level were offered overtime to help with staffing, and these included the officer who took the initial call about the July 5 crash.

The court heard there had been no concerns about his work previously and that the incident was due to "human error".

The current Police Scotland Chief Constable, Iain Livingstone, was in court for the hearing and offered his "profound apologies and sincere condolences" to the families of Ms Bell and Mr Yuill.

Murdo Macleod QC, representing Police Scotland, said that reviews of the call handling system were carried out in the wake of the tragedy and that the 38 recommendations have now been implemented in full.