Cardiff riots: Police refer themselves to watchdog after crash deaths

Am I missing something?

They’re riding what looks to be an electric motorbike (judging by their speed on CCTV and the fact he’s not pedalling) 2 up, without helmets and presumably without licence and insurance. Police spot this and follow them, and they make off. After losing the police they then wreck.

It’s absolutely tragic that two kids have died, but why all the heat towards the police? Are they not supposed to try and stop people from doing illegal things?

2 Likes

A marginalised community area with zero trust for the police, probably with some good reason

A police seemingly caught out telling porkies to try and get ahead of the story (common tactic in such cases)

A death of young people for a relatively small crime, with the final acts still unclear so people can interpret based on above

Those are three things that together can easily lead to what happened.

Personally based on their driving they didn’t help themselves, and yeah probably should have been chased to try and stop them but you can see how this situation got to where it is quite easily…

4 Likes

One thing you’re missing is the lack of trust in the police, based upon institutional cultural failings that have led to countless cases of their seeking to cover up for their colleagues as/when they make fckups.

I don’t know the specifics of the Cardiff actions but I do know from first hand experiences how dishonest the vast majority of police are and are happy to go along with lies to protect their own reputation rather than honestly accept their failings.

Has always been thus but now we have the use of social media and phones which now means that police lies are far more easily challenged and so we have the cumulative realisation of just how dishonest they are, individually and collectively.

They are defensive, corrupt and unable to come up with honest responses to their failings and why would they be any different?

Of course not all police are dodgy and every cart of apples has the odd good one. Just a shame how so many go “good ones” go through their careers not seeing, not speaking out and basically doing sfa to root out the w*nkers that permeat their ranks.

You wonder why some people treat the police with contempt? It’s because of how they individually and collectively behave. You reap what you sow…

5 Likes

Thanks for the replies, I just saw it on the news and didn’t catch the bit where the police denied all involvement until they realised there was CCTV.

Their carefully worded sidestepping and incremental admissions don’t exactly give confidence in their honesty, and can’t have helped matters.

3 Likes

Have you seen the recent article showing the real footage.

BBC edited the footage to show the Police van following a couple of seconds behind.

The real unedited footage shows the Police van was actually 30 + seconds behind by which time the e-scooter had vanished and to cap it all the van then turned left off the main road.

The Police van occupants were probably non the wiser of the scooter ahead of them, so as usual thanks to the Britain Bashing Corporation, their lies have stirred up a hornets nest because the real story did not suit their narrative.

Either way, the 2 scrotes should not have been on the scooter in the first place, so they contributed or caused their own downfall.

And if that comment offends, then sorry I make no apologies. Those of us who have served are according to @bluelagos obviously corrupt and bent, so I might as well say it as it is! :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

2 Likes

Yes I did notice the edited CCTV, but there is also another timestamped CCTV clip that does show the police following closely behind the bike. Cardiff: New CCTV shows police following electric bike before crash - YouTube

In any case, the outcome was determined entirely by the actions of the kids on the bike.

The kid’s parents gave him a bike that was fast enough to kill him and that he was unable to control, not the police. The police also didn’t force them to make off (it seems in all of the CCTV so far that their lights and sirens stayed off and they were following rather than chasing) and by all accounts had already decided it wasn’t worth the risk of chasing them and were nowhere near them when they crashed (the kids likely got spooked, hammered it away and kept on going, but this isn’t the fault of the police - they can’t just not try to initiate contact with anyone just in case they try to get away)

This is what confused me so much when I first read about this, in fact it seems the police were doing precisely what the taxpayer pays them to do. To have not followed them would be a police force that doesn’t actively enforce the law, and it’s ridiculous to suggest they should have acted in that way.

As far as I’m concerned this should be cut and dry, but the police definitely should have been more forthright with the whole truth a lot sooner.

1 Like

Thanks TC. Exactly what I thought. I’m actually feeling sorry for the officers and what is coming next from all those idiots demanding ‘justice’.

1 Like

Can you share the link to that article where the BBC supposedly doctored the video?

The one I saw is clutching to make a point to fit the right wing agenda of the relevant publication

Which of course would fit your characterisation of the BBC… Which looks like it’s been lifted straight off a right wing trol twitter profile

1 Like

It’s in the video in the first post, motorcycle passes at 17:59:30, police van passes at 17:59:41 but there is an 10 second cut in the video. Although there is no cut in the second video linked in the 6th post where the police van is shown from two different angles and time stamped at just 1 second behind the motorcycle and judging by the speed you’d have to be a sandwich short of a picnic to not understand a chase was in progress.

Interestingly I can’t now find the video showing the much longer gap between them, but I have found this video with a much clearer time stamp. It appears the longer video may be the doctored one. Cardiff riot: Exclusive CCTV footage shows police van pursuing teenagers on an e-bike - YouTube

How is that not a chase?

Was this not an electric bike?

Private eScooters cannot be used on public roads.

I must be missing it but in that clip, it seems like the timestamp is in top right corner, right? I can’t see the time stamp when bike passes… But maybe I need to go to Specsavers (it’s possible)

No critique here, just want to see.it for my own eyes as I’m also not blind to journo sensationalisn

Ok I’m confused. They go left to right at 17:58.30s past, and right to left at 17.59.40, with the police van chasing 1s behind…

Try half speed and freeze frame


Below is the time stamped video that confirms a chase was on

Just to be clear I’m not judging anyone’s actions or choices here just pointing out that the police van does appear to be chasing the motorcycle and the attached, time stamped video evidence appears to support that, which means that the police statements to the contrary appear to be incorrect.

I see it differently. Based on that YouTube link (same video, slightly better quality) the bike passes at 17:59.39, not 30

You can see.the small gap / distortion in the last number showing its a 9, not a 0

I also see a 9 in your images NT

Likewise, for me here is the key issue is what happened after because the (seemingly) false narrative that was issued to media will have added fuel to the fire and riots when this evidence cropped up. Let alone make it less likely that the police are believed or trusted next time.

If you lie about one claim, don’t expect people to trust you on another… Just like the police would press a suspect on one action if he had been lying up to that point.

The word if in the above is crucial.

In your images I see it as 17:59:39 too.

From all the video evidence I’ve seen it would appear that the police statements ‘denying a chase’ appear to be incorrect. What is clear to me is that the close proximity of the police van to the fleeing motorcycle only encourages the kids to ride faster and take more risks and the police are very well aware of this.

Ch Supt Stone “when the collision occurred there was no police vehicle on Snowden Road” so what does that mean? We may never know but if I was a gambling man I’d wager that the chase was not authorised and/or the police van was ordered to stand down somewhere before Snowden Road.

…and now it appears that the reason the police van didn’t chase the motorcycle in to Snowdon Road could be because of the bollards at the end of Stanway Road.

@National_Treasure This is what I meant when I said that the police were doing some very carefully worded sidestepping. In the normal world if I were desperately trying to get away from you but you were matching my speed and following behind me, I would consider myself being chased.

With the police however I believe you’re not classed as being pursued until after they’ve clearly signalled to you that they require you to stop (sirens or hand signals etc.) and you refuse to do so. If they stay behind you but have not made clear any requirement for you to stop, then in their book you’re being followed rather than chased. It does however seem quite dishonest of them (although not strictly incorrect) to simply state “We did not chase them” without explaining that they were however following them quite closely.

“There were no police vehicles on Snowden Road” is also a correct statement, but when they used it to reinforce the fact the kids weren’t being chased when they crashed, it did them no favours when the CCTV surfaced showing them being followed immediately prior. I would however point out that the last bit of CCTV from 2 minutes later does show that the police had by that point allowed them quite a sizeable gap, and didn’t seem to be applying any pressure on them before turning off when the kids went through some bollards CCTV shows people on e-bike followed by police van one minute before fatal crash in Cardiff - YouTube

In any case I still see the police doing precisely what they’re paid to do, but with the death of 2 kids the emotional element will always make it seem like they’ve done something wrong. It seems that in trying to avoid the bad PR with their slippery statements, all they’ve managed to do is give the impression that they have something to hide.

1 Like

The circumstances are tragic and rightly or wrongly the kids chose to run and the police chose to chase them. I cannot see this as anything other than kids being chased by police who are intent on catching them. Let’s put the boot on the other foot the kids were running away from the police and failing to stop, how is that even possible if the police weren’t chasing them? What if it ended differently and the kids had been apprehended, do you seriously think they’d not be arrested for failing to stop?

It matters not how the police choose to define chase, pursuit, follow or whether or not lights and sirens were being used these kids were being chased, they knew and understood they were being chased, the police intent was to catch them. The video evidence doesn’t lie!

May I point out that from 69 Frank Road to 7 Stanway Road (the two video footage locations) the kids gained 15 seconds on the chasing police van over the course of 700 yards and that is all that is known. May be the police van lost ground negotiating the Ely Church roundabout, may be the police turned off Stanway Road into Howell Road when they saw the ‘No Through Road’ signage or bollards further down the road, maybe their request to chase the kids was denied, maybe they were ordered to stand down, maybe they just realised the kids had escaped and gave up, may be it was their tea break or maybe we’re to believe the police van was never involved in a chase and was simply on a routine patrol totally unaware of the lads ahead of them!

1 Like

Yes there are an awful lot of gaps in what can be taken as fact, but looking at the CCTV my thinking is this: Boys on illegal bike randomly come across a police van ahead, turn the bike back around and spank it away from them. Police spot this and catch up to them. Police stay behind them whilst seeking authorisation to pursue. Most likely they aren’t given authorisation to pursue so they back off, kids carry on spanking it and crash.

Regardless of whether the police followed or chased, the kid’s actions were their own. They spanked it away because they knew that what they were doing was illegal, and they fully expected that if the police saw them they would go after them. I also expect the police to go after people doing illegal things and see no problem with this.

If I were riding around on a hayabusa without a helmet or insurance I would fully expect that if spotted, the police would want a word with me. If I WERE spotted and I promptly fired myself through a bus stop trying to get away, I would have only myself to blame.

1 Like