- 2 days ago
The Crash Detectives - Season 5 Episode 8 -
Left for Dead
Left for Dead
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00The road requires forensic examination.
00:03We've got to start asking the question, why is this happening?
00:07Pedestrian's been struck in the Codendorf area of this dual carriageway.
00:10The car has failed to stop.
00:12And inside the Cordon's, dedicated officers take on this challenge.
00:18Clearly, I don't think this came out of the factory sounding like that.
00:22This person's lost their life for whatever reason.
00:24We're here trying to establish why.
00:26Only now can I realise that that is actually in the middle of my lane.
00:33Tracking down the evidence.
00:35This is really important, this is key.
00:37To get to the truce.
00:38Once we've got somebody, that's going to put him in the driver's seat.
00:42There's a death on the road.
00:43So we've got to be investigating properly and thoroughly.
00:46This is a proper head scratcher, this is.
00:49All in a day's work for the Crash Detectives.
00:56The Crash Detectives.
00:57The Crash Detectives.
00:58The Crash Detectives.
00:59The Crash Detectives.
01:00The Crash Detectives.
01:01The Crash Detectives.
01:02The Crash Detectives.
01:03The Crash Detectives.
01:04The Crash Detectives.
01:05The Crash Detectives.
01:06The Crash Detectives.
01:07The Crash Detectives.
01:08The Crash Detectives.
01:09The Crash Detectives.
01:10The Crash Detectives.
01:11The Crash Detectives.
01:12The Crash Detectives.
01:13The Crash Detectives.
01:14The Crash Detectives.
01:15The Crash Detectives.
01:16The Crash Detectives.
01:17The Crash Detectives.
01:18The Crash Detectives.
01:19The Crash Detectives.
01:20The Crash Detectives.
01:21The Crash Detectives.
01:22The Crash Detectives.
01:23Just give us a bit of space.
01:33Yeah, just one more.
01:36Put this mask on for a minute, fella, alright?
01:43Are you a witness, sir?
01:44I was in the car.
01:45You were in this car.
01:46Hosing the car, hosing the car.
01:47You were in this car?
01:48Yeah.
01:49I was in the passenger.
01:50I don't know where the driver was.
01:53I don't know where the driver was.
01:54I was in the passenger.
01:55I don't know where the driver was.
01:56I don't know where the driver was.
01:57That lady there, Sunday, the puff jacket did run that direction,
02:04which would tend to judge you the driver.
02:07As questions are mounting over the whereabouts of the driver,
02:11critical care doctors are now on scene.
02:14There's one in there.
02:15Two of them, yeah?
02:16Yeah.
02:17Yeah.
02:18He's been ejected on impact.
02:21A 22-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman have been seriously injured.
02:30As they're taken to hospital, investigative work at the scene of this crash can now begin.
02:37Initially, it would appear that the Citroen has been travelling this direction towards Newport.
02:49And the other vehicle, the Polo, has been travelling in the opposite direction.
02:54They're now looking for evidence of how the two cars have collided.
03:00I was expecting damage from, like, front corner, corner to corner, but there isn't.
03:05It's just avoided the front of it and has actually struck it just in line with the A pillar.
03:10So it must have been slightly sideways to be able to do that.
03:15While this damage can be explained by the impact with the Citroen,
03:20it's proving more difficult to understand what's happened to the other side of the car.
03:26I don't know if the fire brigade done that.
03:31We had one passenger who's ejected, who's landed here.
03:36And the other rear seat passenger's still inside.
03:39So I don't think fire would have needed to do anything.
03:46This is a proper head-scratcher, this is.
03:53The man thought to be at the wheel of the Polo has fled the scene.
03:58While the driver of the Citroen C3 has minor injuries, despite this impact.
04:05The drive shaft's there. It's pulling the drive shaft out of that wheel.
04:08Yeah.
04:10That connects the gearbox to the wheels.
04:13That bit there...
04:16..was connected to that.
04:19To cause damage like this...
04:22..requires huge force.
04:28Is it in gear or is it neutral?
04:29It's in neutral, and brakes on.
04:33There's no airbag deployment, so...
04:35..it's either been stationary or very...
04:38Very, very slow.
04:39..slow moving.
04:41And I think that just...
04:42If he's hit it...
04:44Hang on, there you go.
04:50Look towards me.
04:51See that? See that? Hang on.
04:52Stand by, stand by, stand by.
04:53Yep.
04:54I can see it.
04:55Yep.
04:56Yeah.
04:58It would appear to be a loaded tyre mark.
05:00That's it.
05:01That's it.
05:02That's just popped out of nowhere, hasn't it?
05:03I know, it's mad, isn't it?
05:04The temperature's changing, probably.
05:06So this will be the front offside tyre,
05:07and as he's come through here,
05:08that's the wheel that's been loaded,
05:09and it's made this mark.
05:10It basically starts with the front offside tyre,
05:12and as he's come through here,
05:13that's the wheel that's been loaded,
05:14and it's made this mark.
05:15It basically starts to show
05:16where the vehicle is starting to lose control.
05:18This means they can now start to track the path
05:20of the road that's been running.
05:21It's the road that's been running.
05:22So this will be the front offside tyre,
05:25and as he's come through here,
05:27that's the wheel that's been loaded,
05:30and it's made this mark.
05:33It basically starts to show
05:35where the vehicle is starting to lose control.
05:40This means they can now start to track the path
05:44of the VW Polo further into the scene.
05:49Give it another 12, maybe 9, 12 inches,
05:53and that stops.
05:54Doosh!
05:55Give or take.
05:56I reckon about there.
05:59Yeah.
06:00So I reckon that's probably point of contact.
06:03But then that leads...
06:04Have we got anything on the kerb?
06:09That's what I'm thinking.
06:14Well, that's where he's mounted the kerb, isn't it?
06:18Yeah.
06:23He must have had a good amount of momentum still
06:25to carry him through to there.
06:30If you look at the mark off up this way,
06:33that black stripe at the edge of the yellow markers,
06:37that's the tyre.
06:40And a little bit further on,
06:41it turns into a gouge on the pavement.
06:47The tyre's probably burst at that point.
06:49It's sitting on the rim,
06:50so it's only the rim that's pushing it down into the ground,
06:53so that's why we've got that nice thin mark.
06:56Just where this gouge mark gets close to the wall.
07:09You can see white paint transferred over,
07:13and you can see bits of the rear light cluster
07:16where he's just sideswiped this wall.
07:19So, at this point, the car is sort of more and more sideways
07:29as it moves towards that lamppost.
07:35Now, I think this is lamppost.
07:38I think he's just glanced it.
07:41But because it struck it at the B pillar,
07:44which is where, obviously, the rear door is mounted,
07:47it's basically just ripped the door open.
07:59That door's caught on here. Yeah.
08:02Pushed it back, so it'll come round here.
08:06Yeah. It's pirouetted round.
08:08It's been airborne.
08:09The point at which the front then has then hit the floor is here.
08:13And then it's just dragged the alloy to there.
08:21Now, we haven't necessarily got an idea of speed yet,
08:23but when you consider just how much it's moved the lamppost,
08:28it would appear to be fairly high.
08:30As it's flung round, the pivot will have just ejected the passenger.
08:40Because I'm guessing, yeah, they didn't have the belt on.
08:42While the man lay seriously injured on the road,
08:56the driver chose to run away.
08:58And at the scene of the crash,
09:03witnesses told police that they'd seen him making his escape.
09:08We're quite happy that the driver has gone that way,
09:10the witnesses in the car behind.
09:11Yeah, he said that.
09:12He said that he's got out of the car and run down towards the curb.
09:20Sarge?
09:23I think this is CTTV.
09:24Yeah.
09:38I think that is the central suspect.
09:41Did you get the description from the CTTV?
09:44It looks like black shoes,
09:46light blue body to a jacket with a navy blue hat.
09:50Yeah, we think there was four people in the car,
09:55obviously the driver's run off,
09:57gone down, we think, into Ringland.
10:00We've captured him on CCTV a couple of times.
10:04Then a black Audi has picked him up.
10:06From that footage,
10:07we've then been able to compare that to
10:10vehicles we've got on our database.
10:17Excuse me sir.
10:18Go ahead of her.
10:21Possibly found it.
10:25Yeah, I'll come back with you shortly.
10:27Possibly found it.
10:28Is that the Audi?
10:29The Audi.
10:35Can you do a check on that to see who it comes back to
10:39and then do associate checks for that person
10:42to see if any of the people who are in the car
10:45associates of those individuals, yeah.
10:47As inquiries gain pace,
10:50so does analysis of the evidence at the scene.
10:53It shows our vehicle is on the incorrect side of the road
10:57for the direction he was travelling.
10:59Starting to suggest that our VW driver is the one that's at fault
11:05in this collision.
11:07And while they don't have the suspected driver, what they do have is the car.
11:16It's now been recovered from the scene to a secure compound.
11:21There's obviously a question over who the driver was.
11:25So what we need is forensic evidence, DNA, fingerprints, that sort of thing.
11:31Once we've got somebody, this is what's going to say that was the person in the car driving at the time of the collision.
11:37That's going to put him in the driver's seat.
11:41But there's more in this car that could link the driver to the collision.
11:48Car, for Matt.
11:50But they'll need to move fast.
11:52There's obviously sections of glass.
11:55Yeah.
11:57So if we do identify a suspect, if we can identify what clothing they were wearing, along with the trainers,
12:02because potentially there could be, there's fragments of glass everywhere,
12:06so there could be a section or a fragment of that glass that's embedded within their footwear,
12:09or within their trainer, that they might not know about.
12:14So their footwear is quite important.
12:15Now you've mentioned that, because I know they're actively looking for him now, aren't they?
12:21Hi, Matt.
12:23Hi, Sarge, are you free to speak in a minute?
12:25Yeah, go on, mate.
12:27It's likely to be beneficial from the inquiry to seize the clothing and his footwear
12:32for comparisons to glass, because there is glass samples on the seat and in the footwell.
12:40Yes, that's pretty common, mate.
12:43Yeah, no problem.
12:46And the forensic opportunities don't end there.
12:51There's obviously clearly airbags that have been deployed.
12:56So there's a good chance that a suspect has contacted one of these airbags here,
13:01and they could have potentially DNA or saliva on it.
13:05Because there's one thing being in a car, there's another thing being during a collision.
13:09When the airbags are deployed.
13:10Exactly.
13:15At the same time the airbags were fired, another safety feature was also activated.
13:22This seatbelt has been pulled tight there, the car's sensed the collision.
13:27So that's good evidence that that seatbelt wasn't worn at the time of the collision.
13:30But it's a different story for those travelling in the front.
13:38There you go.
13:39Oh, nice.
13:41Yeah.
13:43It's a very indicative mark, the seatbelt at the time of impact was being worn.
13:47Look at that.
13:49Oh, wow.
13:50It's like a two-stage.
13:51Got a lovely one on there as well.
13:52Yeah.
13:54And this could also link the driver to the crash.
13:58Well, bruising can go on for weeks, especially this type of dramatic bruising.
14:02Yeah, sometimes the longer it's left, the more it sort of develops.
14:08Yeah.
14:09So I think once you do identify a suspect, we should be looking at, you know, definitely having a look at his body to see if it's consistent with your findings with the seatbelt.
14:18Yeah.
14:19Because it's definitely been worn.
14:21Yeah.
14:22At the point at which that pyrotechnics, that pretension is fired, it's definitely been on.
14:26Yeah.
14:29But for any of these to be of use, there's now an urgency to find the man who was at the wheel.
14:36We're not just looking necessarily for footage from after the incident.
14:42We also want to know what he's been doing earlier in the day.
14:45And in the hours before the collision, the car has been traced back to a pub.
14:54The white VW Polo can be seen on CCTV.
15:00That would have been one of the last pieces of footage of that car prior to the collision.
15:07But it wasn't just the car that was recorded on camera.
15:15Captured just half an hour before leaving, the occupants can be seen enjoying a drink.
15:25But one of the men stood out.
15:27You can see a male in the same dark blue and light blue puffer jacket.
15:43Response officers looked at that footage.
15:46And realised they'd dealt with him before.
15:50From the CCTV footage in the pub, they particularly remembered a hand tattoo that he has.
15:57And a chunky silver bracelet that he normally wears.
16:02They now knew exactly who they were looking for.
16:06This is a man who appears to have run from the scene.
16:10Leaving the people who presumably he knew with very, very serious injuries.
16:19But questions still remain about the part he had to play in this collision.
16:27Because the airbags have been deployed, because the seatbelt pretensioners have been activated.
16:31We know that probably that car's stored some data about what happened in the five seconds leading up to that collision.
16:40So they've used a specialist system to access the electronics of the Polo.
16:45And that looks, that looks really good.
16:50It's now produced a snapshot of information listed in half-second intervals.
16:59So we can see from this, the accelerator pedal going from 20%, 24, 64 and 100%.
17:07And that's flat to the floor at that point.
17:09It's data that links directly to what the person is doing to the controls of the car.
17:14And it tells us exactly what their manner of driving was prior to the collision.
17:20He's doing 68 miles per hour there.
17:24The speed limit is 30 miles an hour.
17:27He's also putting left hand steering input in.
17:30So he's almost at, he's almost at 90 degrees, isn't it? 88 degrees.
17:39So he's kind of at this point, with the accelerator planted as hard as it'll go.
17:44And the car is still accelerating.
17:46And this is what, four seconds prior to impact?
17:49Yeah.
17:50So it goes from that point, roughly.
17:58Yep.
17:59To back to zero.
18:01That's quite harsh.
18:02But still, but still accelerating three and a half seconds beforehand and then back and then...
18:07Round to the right.
18:08Round to the right by almost the same amount.
18:11He's gone on from there to there in a second, but it's still accelerating at 100%.
18:20And then another half a second, he's back to left with steering.
18:24So he's back to here, roughly.
18:26Maybe at that sort of angle.
18:28By reading the data, you can almost see the panic in the driver trying to gain control back again and clearly failed.
18:36With two of his passengers now paying the price of this erratic driving, he has some serious questions to answer.
18:50But despite efforts to track him down, he continued to evade police.
18:57W.O. calling Fox, your Echo 3-1.
19:00Until they finally had a breakthrough.
19:03Fox, Echo 3-1.
19:05Are you able to assist local units, please, in Newport, for assistance to gain entry?
19:10They've had a tip-off that the man they're searching for is hiding at a top floor flat in the city centre.
19:17There's quite a few officers out there at the moment. They're looking for a Jamie Chalice.
19:20Jamie Chalice.
19:25Oscar, what's we going to do?
19:26Go ahead.
19:28We've got a Jamie Chalice in test, please.
19:31Nice one, Roger.
19:32Jamie Chalice from Roger.
19:42Jamie, are you responsible for driving a motor vehicle when he was involved in a crash on Christchurch Road?
19:48I think at this point I'll read out the prepared statement on behalf of Jamie.
19:50Yeah, go ahead.
19:52Yes, for the purposes of the tape.
19:54I, Jamie Chalice, will say as follows...
19:56The 24-year-old man admits he was travelling in the car at the time of the crash and that he ran away from the scene.
20:04But he's denying that he was the driver.
20:11Explain to me as best you can how the collision between the VW Polo that you were travelling in and the Citroen C3, how did it happen?
20:21No coin.
20:24So if he's adding no detail, they'll need to rely on other ways to piece together exactly how this collision unfolded.
20:31On the evening of the crash, the team used a laser scanner to capture an accurate record of the scene.
20:46So we've got this scale plan view of the scene from above, essentially.
20:54So this is the plan without anything on it, so the direction of travel is this.
20:59And it's now been combined with the electronic evidence taken from the VW Polo.
21:08This is the Citroen here.
21:10The lamp post is here and this is the Polo at its point of rest.
21:14So that data has allowed me to essentially plot all of the actions taken by the driver on a map.
21:24This particular section of road is 30 miles an hour and you can see 68, 67, 70 miles an hour at this point.
21:32This top speed of 70 miles per hour was recorded just two seconds before the Polo hit the Citroen.
21:42And its driver is now a key witness.
21:47We have a statement.
21:50He says, I first noticed the VW Polo on the apex of the bend.
21:57The vehicle appeared to be travelling at high speed.
22:00It's difficult to actually document an exact speed from what I saw.
22:03I was very frightened for my own safety.
22:08It was in the path of the VW Polo, which appeared to be flying towards me.
22:13I didn't really have anywhere to go, so I stopped my vehicle and tucked in as far as possible to the side, trying to keep myself safe.
22:22He's steering really sharply, so 72 degrees to the left, so that's probably about that sort of position.
22:32This fits with the position of this loaded tyre mark just prior to impact with the Citroen that we saw at the scene.
22:40The VW Polo then hit my vehicle, which is stationary at this point.
22:45All the way through this, the accelerator's pinned to the floor.
22:52This is the point where he decides, OK, I'm going to take my foot off the accelerator.
22:56So within the same half a second is when he decides to put the brake on,
23:01which is the point of impact with the Citroen.
23:09He's now travelling back to the near side of the road.
23:13And at this point, the data shows us that he's put in a sudden right steering event.
23:22106 degrees, which is quite a large rightward steering input.
23:28And at this point, he's still travelling at 43 miles an hour.
23:34The back of the car is sort of swinging around until he makes contact with that lamp post.
23:41As the car then swung around into its final position, allowed the unseat belted rear seat passengers to be thrown around and to actually come out of the car.
23:55The electronic data is consistent with the evidence found at the scene.
24:04But it's also allowed Kath to track the road positioning of the Polo in the lead up to the crash.
24:09So this red line here is where that car would have been as it's come through that collision sequence.
24:17But where the data recording ends, the witness accounts continue.
24:27The driver emerged a couple of seconds after the car had come to a stop.
24:33I saw him get out of the driver's door of the VW Polo.
24:36I recall him walking around the car and looking at the male passenger who had fallen out of the vehicle.
24:46He didn't appear to check on him.
24:48He looked at him very briefly and then I heard him say, I gotta go.
24:52Did you say that and then went off?
25:00No problem.
25:02Still sticking with his version of events and denying being at the wheel.
25:07We still need to, by some method or other, put him in the driver's seat if that's where he was.
25:17The very last forensic opportunity available to us was DNA.
25:27With the driver's curtain airbag only deploying at the time of the crash,
25:32it's now crucial to this investigation.
25:37That's really significant.
25:38It's very unlikely that any other person would have touched that airbag at the point of the collision.
25:45So what we needed to do is compare the DNA on the airbag
25:49to the DNA of the person that we believed to be the driver.
25:55But as they waited for the results,
25:59it emerged that this wasn't the only serious offence that he was wanted for.
26:07He was suspected to be linked to a number of other offences,
26:13particularly an aggravated burglary along with a number of other people.
26:19They had been wearing balaclavas when they'd broken into a house.
26:23They'd threatened the occupants with knives and they'd demanded money.
26:25But the gang was captured on CCTV.
26:32Footage showed one of the burglars taking off his balaclava and discarding it at the side of the road.
26:38That was then seized and tested for DNA.
26:48There were now two pieces of evidence with the potential to link him to crimes.
26:55That comparison was done.
27:00Both of those matched back to our driver.
27:06Now clearly at the wheel, at the time of the crash,
27:12there was no running away from the reality of his actions.
27:16The manner of driving that we can see, not only from the collision,
27:21but the data that we've got describes a person who has been absolutely reckless
27:27towards the safety of the people in the car,
27:31the people who might have been sharing the road with him.
27:34The man he left lying on the road after being thrown from the car went on to make a recovery.
27:45But the woman was left with life-changing injuries.
27:51Given the speeds, given the harshness of acceleration, the harshness of steering,
27:56I'm not surprised that he wasn't able to maintain control through that section of road.
28:00The driver admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving,
28:06as well as aggravated burglary.
28:09He also pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified,
28:13dangerous driving and possession of drugs with intent to supply.
28:20He was jailed for almost 20 years.
28:25It was science that's allowed us to bring this offender to justice
28:28and taking a dangerous offender off the streets.
28:32OF a DRY
28:33DRY
28:39NACHO
28:42DRY
28:43DRY
28:44DRY
28:46DRY
28:47DRY
28:49DRY
28:50DRY
28:51DRY
28:52DRY
28:53DRY
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