M9 FAI: Former police officer who didn't log crash call is 'tortured' by his failing

Former sergeant Brian Henry told a fatal accident inquiry into the tragedy that the incident, now over eight years ago, "lives with me every day and will always do so" and was "eating him up".

Falkirk couple Lamara Bell, 25, and John Yuill, 28, died after the car they were in left the M9 near Stirling on July 5, 2015 as they drove back from a camping trip.

The inquiry previously heard Mr Henry was working an overtime shift as a call handler at Police Scotland's service centre at Bilston Glen, Midlothian, when he took a 101 call on July 5 from a farmer reporting a crashed car beside the M9 at Bannockburn.

He failed to create an entry on the force's command and control system in respect of the call, and emergency services were not dispatched until three days later, after a second person reported the car.

Paramedics found Mr Yuill, who had been driving, already dead, and passenger Miss Bell partially conscious with a significant head injury. She was flown to hospital in Glasgow where she later died.

As the couple's families listened from the front row of the public seating at Falkirk Sheriff Court, Sgt Henry, now 61 and retired, told the inquiry into their deaths: "I know the grief and loss that the families feel is not something which will ever leave them."

In a prepared statement, he said: "Having given my life to protect and serve policing, it is devastating to me that I have any involvement in the events of that day. It should never happen again, and hopefully now cannot, with new systems in place.

"The families need to know this can never happen again. To this day I don't know with any certainty what happened.

"It's been eating me up ever since.

"It is with me every day, and will be all my days."

Mr Henry said he wanted to let the grieving families know "how very sorry I am for their loss and the years of pain" caused.

He added: "I still torture myself trying to work out what actually happened. As a police officer my approach was always proactive, always to go the extra mile, which is why explaining this is so hard and why I go over it again and again.

"That's why being involved in this has been so traumatic.

"What really matters is the the families get the explanation from everyone involved in this about what happened and how we can be certain it never happens again."Mr Henry, who retired in 2018 after 30 years service, added: "My biggest hope is that this process can provide clarity for them and some degree of closure."

In a voice thick and breaking with emotion he replied: "It's been devastating. Thirty years' service, trying to serve the public, doing the best you can, on many occasions going above and beyond. It's impacted me, my wife, my children, the families who are suffering.”

The inquiry heard that it was agreed by all sides that the sergeant, who had volunteered to work overtime at the centre, had performed "enthusiastically and diligently" on all the eight shifts he did until the day of the tragedy. Crown counsel Elaine Smith said it was agreed that his failure to log the farmer's call on the force's incident management system arose "by simple, momentary human error, an act of omission, a lapse on his part".

Mr Henry said that when he spoke to the farmer Mr Wilson, no-one was reported to be "with" the crashed car, and his thoughts were that he was dealing with a vehicle that had been possibly stolen and abandoned.

But he said he must have been "distracted" after taking the call, or he would certainly have logged it.

The inquiry has heard that three software systems were in use at Bilston Glen but part time overtime volunteers from other parts of the force, such as Mr Henry, were not trained in one system.

Ms Smith said it was agreed that Mr Henry had been "inadequately trained" by Police Scotland prior to being asked to answer calls at Bilston Glen and Police Scotland had not identified there was a risk of human error in the logging of incidents and did not have systems in place to reduce that risk.

The inquiry heard last week that Mr Henry had "felt physically sick" and "in shock" when he was called on July 8, just after the couple were found.

A previous statement read to the inquiry stated: "It was the worst call you can imagine as a police officer – call you would not want to receive."

The inquiry has heard that police officers from local divisions had been brought in as volunteers on overtime to handle non-emergency calls at Bilston Glen, which had been suffering "critical" shortages of staff since the closure earlier that year of "legacy force" control rooms in Stirling and Glenrothes after the merging of Scotland's eight old police forces into one national police service.

But the volunteer officers were only given two to three hours' training.

The inquiry was told that within hours of the discovery of Miss Bell and Mr Yuill's body a directive was issued requiring all staff, including overtime officers, to be more fully trained to "minimise the risk and protect the reputation of the Police Service of Scotland".

The FAI comes after the family of Ms Bell was awarded more than £1 million in damages from Police Scotland in a civil settlement in December 2021.

In September 2021, the force was fined £100,000 at the High Court in Edinburgh after it pleaded guilty to health and safety failings which “materially contributed” to Ms Bell’s death.

The inquiry, before Sheriff James Williamson, continues.