Met officer who failed to check on woman and child killed in chase keeps job

By Robert Firth, Local Democracy Reporter

A Met Police officer who failed to check on a woman and child killed by the driver of a car they were chasing will keep his job. 

PC Edward Welch was pursuing Joshua Dobby through Penge when Dobby, then 23, mounted the pavement and hit a family, killing child actor Makayah McDermott, 10, and his aunt Rozanne Cooper, 34. 

Another child was taken to hospital with serious injuries following the August 2016 crash.

At a police misconduct hearing on June 14, PC Welch was handed a final written warning lasting 18 months. 

A panel chaired by Cameron Brown found the officer’s decision to chase Dobby on foot after the collision, instead of tending to injured pedestrians, amounted to gross misconduct.

A separate charge levelled at PC Welch for failing to accurately assess the level of risk during the pursuit or communicate the circumstances to the police control room amounted to misconduct, the panel found. 

The misconduct hearing at Palestra House in Southwark heard that the BMW PC Welch was driving reached speeds of more than 60 mph during the six minute chase.

PC Welch and his colleague and passenger in the BMW, Jack Keher, began the chase after a number plate recognition camera snapped the Ford Focus Dobby was driving. The vehicle had been reported stolen from a property in Orpington earlier that  month.

During the pursuit, the Ford Focus began to break the speed limit, drive down one-way roads the wrong way and make illegal turns. Despite this, the officers continued the chase.

Ailsa Williamson, representing PC Welch at the hearing, called him a “talented officer” who  had made an “error of judgement” in “exceptionally unusual circumstances”. 

She added: “There was a legitimate policing purpose in pursuing the subject.”

PC Welch joined the Met in 2008. He passed his advanced driving training in 2013 and undertook five chases prior to the one on August 31, 2016, including one which he aborted after the driver turned on to a grassy verge.

Keher, 35, has left the Met since the incident. While the case was also proven against Keher, the panel decided he would not have been dismissed if still serving so no sanction was imposed. 

Mel Palmer, regional director of The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said: “We found that the officers’ actions in pursuing a stolen car at up to three times the speed limit in an area busy with traffic and pedestrians during the school holidays, was not proportionate or justified given the apparent safety risk to the public.

“The officers also failed in their duty of care to protect lives following the collision by chasing the offender rather than immediately going to the aid of the victims.”  

Pictured top: Palestra House in Southwark (Picture: Google Street View)