Four killed in head-on crash after 100mph pursuit

Four people were killed in a head-on car crash yesterday after a 100mph police chase.

Officers from Surrey Police were pursuing a Vauxhall Carlton as it travelled the wrong way down the A20 dual carriageway at Swanley in Kent before it collided with a Vauxhall Vectra and burst into flames.

The chase had started after a break-in at a Boots store in Oxted. Four or five men wearing balaclavas and hoods smashed into the store using two vehicles at 2.15am. The second car, a silver Vauxhall Cavalier, has not been found.

A spokesman for Kent police said: "The officers at the scene had an awful lot of work to do, collecting the debris, examining the vehicles and arranging for the bodies to be removed. We have informed the driver of the Vectra's next of kin that he has died but other relatives need to be informed and ... we do not know when a formal identification will take place."

The Police Complaints Authority, which will oversee an investigation into the crash, said the number of deaths in high-speed police pursuits had almost tripled in three years. Nine people died in 1997-98 but in 2000-01 the number had increased to 25. Sixteen people were also seriously injured in the past year.

The authority has called for restrictions to be placed on high-speed driving by officers unless there was a reduction in the number of deaths. The PCA has also demanded the wide-spread introduction of "black boxes" in police cars to "prevent police drivers taking unacceptable risks".

Kent's Assistant Chief Constable, Jim Barker-McCardle, said: "It is far too early to speculate other than to stress that the Vauxhall Carlton was believed to be involved in a burglary and was being driven at high speed. It may have been driven in such a way as to bring about the accident.

"To say that the police pursuit is to blame would be speculative and premature."