A fake police officer tried to pull over a lone woman driver on the M1, but police have said there will be no investigation and the man will not be spoken to face to face. The woman says a man drove close to her on the motorway in Leicestershire and waved what looked like a warrant card, motioning for her to stop.
But she did not pull over, fearing a repeat of the Wayne Couzens attack on Sarah Everard. The woman told the BBC that when she came off the motorway she called police and gave the man's car registration number.
It has now emerged he was not an officer, but had worked for the police. Explaining what happened, the woman said the driver came up to her at speed, then pulled across and waved what looked like an official police card - with a royal crest.
She said: “Immediately, I thought he’s a policeman. I’m speeding, I should pull over. He leaned over holding the steering wheel with one hand. He was driving alongside me all the time, shouting to pull over. He was really angry. I felt really stressed.
“He’s looking at me, not the road ahead and the window wasn’t open on my side, but it was on his passenger side and he’s waving the badge that I can clearly see is a black wallet with a police crest badge stuck on the outside.
"I immediately thought of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. I was genuinely frightened. I was shaking. I was gripping the steering wheel.”
The driver pulled off the motorway, and the woman reported him - but by then she was in the Derbyshire force area. She was told he was a Northamptonshire police officer and the incident was passed to Northamptonshire.
The force established the man had worked in a civilian role with the force for a contractor months earlier. The complaint was then passed to Leicestershire police as the incident happened in their area.
All CCTV had by then been deleted and it was not logged until an allegation of impersonating a police officer until five months after the incident. This was almost at the end of the six-month limit for prosecuting such an offence.
Because Leicestershire Police ran out of time the man was not spoken to.
In a statement, it told BBC News: “Leicestershire police takes any report of impersonation of a police officer extremely seriously. However, on this occasion our response did fall below the expected standard.”
The Professional Standards Department of Northamptonshire Police also apologised in a letter. It said: “Ultimately you have been given a poor service throughout the life of this investigation.
"You were left feeling distressed following a male’s actions and this should have been investigated as a crime from the outset. Unfortunately, early misinformation that this male was a police officer with Northamptonshire Police led to this becoming a complaint investigation as opposed to a criminal investigation.”
In the letter, the force promised to speak to the man. It contacted him a month later and, in a pre-arranged phone call, the man denied the allegations. Officers did not visit his home.
This was now twelve months after the incident.
Northamptonshire Police has also revealed there was no record of the man returning his ID card when he stopped working for the contractor.
It says that while the card would have had a Northamptonshire Police crest, it would have been stamped with the words “not a warrant card” and would not have been in a small black wallet. It added that practices for returning cards have now been tightened.
The woman said: “I feel really let down. I still feel sick, panicky and scared. I would say he was a fake policeman who wanted to do me harm.”
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxlaWNlc3Rlcm1lcmN1cnkuY28udWsvbmV3cy9sZWljZXN0ZXItbmV3cy9mYWtlLXBvbGljZS1vZmZpY2VyLXRyaWVkLXN0b3AtOTI2Nzk0ONIBAA?oc=5
2024-05-07 07:07:00Z
CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmxlaWNlc3Rlcm1lcmN1cnkuY28udWsvbmV3cy9sZWljZXN0ZXItbmV3cy9mYWtlLXBvbGljZS1vZmZpY2VyLXRyaWVkLXN0b3AtOTI2Nzk0ONIBAA
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