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00:00Every serious incident on the road requires forensic examination.
00:08We've got to start asking the question, why is this happening?
00:11The pedestrians have been struck in the cold-off area of the steel carriageway.
00:15The car is filled for stop.
00:17And inside the cordons, dedicated officers take on this challenge.
00:23Clearly, I don't think this came out of the factory sounding like that.
00:26This person has lost their life for whatever reason. We're here trying to establish why.
00:34Only now can I realise that that is actually in the middle of my lane.
00:38Tracking down the evidence.
00:40This is really important, this is key.
00:42To get to the truce.
00:43Once we've got somebody, that's going to put him in the driver's seat.
00:47There's a death on the road, so we've got to be investigating properly and thoroughly.
00:51This is a proper head scratcher, this is.
00:54All in a day's work, for the crash detectives.
01:09Police emergency.
01:11It's a road traffic accident.
01:15Two cars involved.
01:17One guy looks as if he's seriously injured.
01:24He came out of the car, and he's, er, I think he may be dead.
01:36Right, just give us a bit of space.
01:38Right.
01:39Yeah, that's my one.
01:41I'm going to put this mask on you a minute fella, alright?
01:48Are you a witness, sir?
01:49I was in the car.
01:50You were in this car.
01:51I was in the car, I was in the car.
01:52You were in this car?
01:53Yeah.
01:54I was in the passenger.
01:55I don't have a clue.
01:56I don't have a clue.
01:57I don't know who you were driving.
01:58I don't know who you were driving.
02:02That lady there says, somebody at Huff Chapel did run that direction, which would tend to
02:10judge you the driver.
02:11As questions are mounting over the whereabouts of the driver, critical care doctors are now on scene.
02:19There's one in there.
02:20Two of them, yeah?
02:21Yeah.
02:22Yeah.
02:24He's been ejected on impact.
02:26A 22-year-old man and a 21-year-old woman have been seriously injured.
02:31As they're taken to hospital, investigative work at the scene of this crash can now begin.
02:46Initially, it would appear that the Citroen has been travelling this direction towards Newport.
02:54And the other vehicle, the Polo, has been travelling in the opposite direction.
02:58They're now looking for evidence of how the two cars have collided.
03:05I was expecting damage from, like, front corner, corner to corner, but there isn't.
03:10It's just avoided the front of it and has actually struck it just in line with the A pillar.
03:15So it must have been slightly sideways to be able to do that.
03:21While this damage can be explained by the impact with the Citroen,
03:25it's proving more difficult to understand what's happened to the other side of the car.
03:34I don't know if FIRE Brigade done that.
03:37We had one passenger who's ejected, who's landed here,
03:42and the other rear-seat passenger's still inside,
03:44so I don't think FIRE would have needed to do anything.
03:46No.
03:51This is a proper head-scratcher, this is.
03:58The man thought to be at the wheel of the Polo has fled the scene,
04:03while the driver of the Citroen C3 has minor injuries,
04:08despite this impact.
04:10The driveshaft there, it's pulled the driveshaft out of that wheel.
04:13Yeah.
04:15That connects the gearbox to the wheels.
04:18That bit there...
04:20..was connected to that.
04:24To cause damage like this requires huge force.
04:30Is it in gear or is it neutral?
04:34It's in neutral, and brakes on.
04:38There's no airbag deployment,
04:40so it's either been stationary or very...
04:43Very, very slow.
04:44..slow moving.
04:46And I think they're just...
04:48If he's hit it...
04:49There you go.
05:03Look towards me.
05:05See that? See that?
05:06Stand by, stand by, stand by.
05:08Yep, I can see it, yep.
05:12Yeah.
05:14It would appear to be a loaded tyre mark.
05:19That's it.
05:21That's just popped out of nowhere, hasn't it?
05:22I know, it's mad, isn't it?
05:24The temperature's changing, probably.
05:28So this will be the front offside tyre,
05:32and as he's come through here,
05:34that's the wheel that's been loaded,
05:36and it's made this mark.
05:38It basically starts to show where the vehicle...
05:43..is starting to lose control.
05:46This means they can now start to track the path of the VW Polo
05:51further into the scene.
05:54Give it another 12, maybe...
05:56..9, 12 inches, and that stops...
05:59..doosh!
06:00Give or take.
06:01I reckon about...
06:03..there.
06:04Yeah.
06:06So that's...
06:07..I reckon that's probably point of contact.
06:08But then that leads...
06:13Have we got anything on the kerb?
06:14That's what I'm thinking.
06:21Well, that's where he's mounted the kerb, isn't it?
06:23Yeah.
06:28He must have had a good amount of momentum still
06:30to carry him through to there.
06:32If you look at the mark off up this way,
06:38that black stripe at the edge of the yellow markers,
06:42that's the tyre.
06:44And a little bit further on, it turns into a gouge on the pavement.
06:49The tyre's probably burst at that point.
06:55It's sitting on the rim.
06:56So it's only the rim that's pushing it down into the ground.
06:58So that's why we've got that nice, thin mark.
07:07Just where this gouge mark gets close to the wall...
07:10..where you can see white paint transferred over,
07:18and you can see bits of the rear light cluster
07:22where he's just sideswiped this wall.
07:27So at this point, the car is sort of more and more sideways...
07:34..as it moves towards that lamp post.
07:36Now, I think this is lamp post.
07:43I think he's just glanced at it.
07:46But because it struck it at the B pillar,
07:49which is where, obviously, the rear door is mounted,
07:52it's basically just ripped the door open.
07:54That door was caught on here.
08:07Yeah.
08:08Pushed it back.
08:10So it'll come round here.
08:11Yeah.
08:12It's pirouetted right now.
08:14It's been airborne.
08:15The point at which the front then has then hit the floor is here.
08:18And then it's just dragged the alloy to there.
08:19You know, we haven't necessarily got an idea of speed yet,
08:24but when you consider just how much it's moved from the lamp post,
08:30it would appear to be fairly high.
08:35As 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.
08:56While the man lay seriously injured on the road,
08:58the driver chose to run away.
09:07And at the scene of the crash,
09:09witnesses told police that they'd seen him making his escape.
09:14We're quite happy the driver has gone that way,
09:15the witnesses in the car behind.
09:17Yeah, he said that.
09:18He said that he's got out of the car and run down towards the curb.
09:25Sarge?
09:27I think this is CTTV.
09:29Yeah.
09:43So I think that is the potential.
09:46Did you get the description from the CTTV?
09:49It looks like black shoes,
09:51light blue body to a jacket with a navy blue pants.
09:53Yeah.
09:54Awesome.
09:59Yeah, we think there's four people in the car.
10:01Obviously, the driver's run off,
10:03gone down, we think, into Ringland.
10:05We've captured him on CCTV a couple of times.
10:08Yeah.
10:09Then a black Audi has picked him up.
10:11From that footage,
10:12we've then been able to compare that to
10:15vehicles we've got on our database.
10:18PHONE RINGS
10:21Excuse me, sir.
10:22PHONE RINGS
10:23Go ahead of her.
10:26Possibly found it.
10:28Erm...
10:30Yeah, I'll come back to you shortly.
10:32Possibly found this.
10:33Is that the Audi?
10:34The Audi.
10:36Can you do a check on that to see who it comes back to?
10:40And then do associate checks for that person
10:45to see if any of the people who are in the car
10:49associates of those individuals, yeah.
10:52As inquiries gain pace,
10:55so does analysis of the evidence at the scene.
10:58It shows our vehicle is on the incorrect side of the road
11:01for the direction he was travelling.
11:04Starting to suggest that our VW driver
11:08is the one that's at fault in this collision.
11:15And while they don't have the suspected driver,
11:18what they do have is the car.
11:21It's now been recovered from the scene
11:24to a secure compound.
11:26There's obviously a question over who the driver was.
11:31So what we need is forensic evidence,
11:34DNA, fingerprints, that sort of thing.
11:36Once we've got somebody,
11:38this is what's going to say
11:40that was the person in the car driving
11:42at the time of the collision.
11:43That's going to put him in the driver's seat.
11:45But there's more in this car
11:48that could link the driver to the collision.
11:53Car, the map.
11:55But they'll need to move fast.
11:57There's obviously sections of glass.
12:00Yeah.
12:02So if we do identify a suspect,
12:04if we can identify what clothing they were wearing,
12:06along with the trainers, because potentially
12:08there could be, there's fragments of glass everywhere,
12:11so there could be a section or a fragment of that glass
12:14that's embedded within their footwear,
12:16or within their trainer,
12:17that they might not know about.
12:19So their footwear is quite important.
12:20Now you've mentioned that,
12:21because I know they're actively looking for him now, aren't they?
12:26Hi, Matt.
12:28Hi, Sarge, all right? You free to speak in a minute?
12:29Yeah, go on, mate.
12:31It's likely to be beneficial from the inquiry
12:34to seize the clothing and his footwear
12:37for comparisons to glass,
12:40because there is glass samples on the seat and in the footwell.
12:43Yes, that's pretty common, mate.
12:47Nice one.
12:48Yeah, no problem.
12:51And the forensic opportunities don't end there.
12:56There's obviously clearly a bag that has been deployed.
13:01So there's a good chance that a suspect has contacted one of these A-bags here,
13:05and they could have potentially DNA or saliva on it.
13:10Because there's one thing being in a car,
13:12there's another thing being during a collision when the A-bags are deployed.
13:15Exactly.
13:19At the same time the A-bags were fired,
13:23another safety feature was also activated.
13:26This seatbelt has been pulled tight there.
13:29The car's sensed the collision.
13:32So that's good evidence that that seatbelt wasn't worn
13:33at the time of the collision.
13:37But it's a different story for those travelling in the front.
13:43There you go.
13:44Oh, nice.
13:46See the abrasion there?
13:48It's a very indicative mark,
13:50the seatbelt at the time of the impact was being worn.
13:53Look at that.
13:54Oh, wow. It's like a two-stage.
13:56Got a lovely one on there as well.
13:57Yeah.
13:59And this could also link the driver to the crash.
14:04Or bruising can go on for weeks.
14:06Especially this type of dramatic bruising.
14:08Sometimes the longer it's left,
14:11the more it sort of develops.
14:13Yeah.
14:15So I think once you do identify a suspect,
14:17we should be looking at, you know,
14:19definitely having a look at his body
14:21to see if it's consistent with your findings with the seatbelt.
14:23Yeah.
14:24Because it's definitely been worn.
14:26Yeah.
14:27At the point at which that pyrotechnics,
14:29that pretension is fired,
14:30it's definitely been on.
14:31Yeah.
14:34But for any of these to be of use,
14:36there's now an urgency to find the man who was at the wheel.
14:40We're not just looking necessarily for footage from after the incident.
14:47We also want to know what he's been doing earlier in the day.
14:50And in the hours before the collision,
14:54the car has been traced back to a pub.
14:59The white VW Polo can be seen on CCTV.
15:03That would have been one of the last pieces of footage of that car
15:08prior to the collision.
15:12But it wasn't just the car that was recorded on camera.
15:19Captured just half an hour before leaving,
15:23the occupants can be seen enjoying a drink.
15:25But one of the men stood out.
15:36You can see a male in the same dark blue and light blue puffer jacket.
15:48Response officers looked at that footage.
15:51And realised they'd dealt with him before.
15:56From the CCTV footage in the pub,
15:58they particularly remembered a hand tattoo that he has
16:02and a chunky silver bracelet that he normally wears.
16:07They now knew exactly who they were looking for.
16:12This is a man who appears to have run from the scene,
16:16leaving the people who presumably he knew.
16:20with very, very serious injuries.
16:25But questions still remain about the part he had to play
16:29in this collision.
16:32Because the airbags have been deployed,
16:34because the seatbelt pretensioners have been activated,
16:37we know that probably that car's stored some data
16:41about what happened in the five seconds leading up to that collision.
16:45So they've used a specialist system
16:47to access the electronics of the polo.
16:53And that looks, that looks really good.
16:56It's now produced a snapshot of information,
16:59listed in half-second intervals.
17:02So we can see from this, the accelerator pedal going from 20%,
17:1024, 64 and 100%, and that's flat to the floor at that point.
17:15It's data that links directly to what the person is doing
17:18to the controls of the car,
17:19and it tells us exactly what their manner of driving was prior to the collision.
17:25He's doing 68 miles per hour there.
17:29The speed limit is 30 miles an hour.
17:32He's also putting left-hand steering input in.
17:40So he's almost at 90 degrees, isn't it? 88 degrees.
17:44So he's kind of at this point, with the accelerator planted as hard as it will go,
17:49and the car is still accelerating.
17:50And this is, what, four seconds prior to impact?
17:53Yeah.
17:59So it goes from that point, roughly.
18:03Yep.
18:05To back to zero.
18:06That's quite a harsh...
18:07But still accelerating, three and a half seconds beforehand,
18:10and then back and then...
18:12Round to the right.
18:13Round to the right by almost the same amount.
18:16He's gone on from there to there in a second,
18:23but it's still accelerating at 100%.
18:25And then another half a second, he's back to left with steering.
18:29So he's back to here, roughly.
18:31Maybe at that sort of angle.
18:33By reading the data, you can almost see the panic in the driver
18:37trying to gain control back again, and clearly failed.
18:45With two of his passengers now paying the price of this erratic driving,
18:50he has some serious questions to answer.
18:55But despite efforts to track him down,
18:58he continued to evade police.
19:01W.O. calling Fox, your Echo 3-1.
19:04Until they finally had a breakthrough.
19:08Fox, Echo 3-1.
19:10Are you able to assist local units, please, in Newport,
19:13for assisted scan entry?
19:15They've had a tip-off
19:17that the man they're searching for is hiding
19:20at a top-floor flat in the city centre.
19:22There's quite a few officers out there at the moment.
19:24They're looking for a Jamie Chalice.
19:30Ask a local to we can do.
19:32Go ahead.
19:34Jamie Chalice in test, please.
19:36Nice one, Roger.
19:38PHONE RINGS
19:46Jamie, are you responsible for driving a motor vehicle
19:50when he was involved in a crash on Christchurch Road?
19:53I think at this point I'll read out the prepared statement on behalf of Jamie.
19:56Yeah, go ahead.
19:58I, Jamie Chalice, will say as follows.
20:01The 24-year-old man admits he was travelling in the car at the time of the crash
20:07and that he ran away from the scene.
20:11But he's denying that he was the driver.
20:16Explain to me as best you can how the collision between the VW Polo
20:22that you were travelling in and the Citroen C3, how did it happen?
20:26No coin.
20:28So if he's adding no detail, they'll need to rely on other ways
20:33to piece together exactly how this collision unfolded.
20:42On the evening of the crash, the team used a laser scanner
20:46to capture an accurate record of the scene.
20:48So we've got this scale plan view of the scene from above, essentially.
20:58So this is the plan without anything on it, so the direction of travel is this.
21:04And it's now been combined with the electronic evidence taken from the VW Polo.
21:09This is the Citroen here, the lamp posters here, and this is the Polo at its point of rest.
21:20So that data has allowed me to essentially plot all of the actions taken by the driver on a map.
21:28This particular section of road is 30 miles an hour and you can see 68, 67, 70 miles an hour at this point.
21:38This top speed of 70 miles per hour was recorded just two seconds before the Polo hit the Citroen.
21:47And its driver is now a key witness.
21:53We have a statement.
21:56He says, I first noticed the VW Polo on the apex of the bend.
22:02The vehicle appeared to be travelling at high speed.
22:05It's difficult to actually document an exact speed from what I saw.
22:08I was very frightened for my own safety.
22:13I was in the path of the VW Polo, which appeared to be flying towards me.
22:18I 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.
22:27He's steering really sharply, so 72 degrees to the left, so that's probably about that sort of position.
22:37This fits with the position of this loaded tyre mark just prior to impact with the Citroen that we saw at the scene.
22:45The VW Polo then hit my vehicle, which was stationary at this point.
22:50All the way through this, the accelerator's pinned to the floor.
22:57This is the point where he decides, OK, I'm going to take my foot off the accelerator.
23:01So within the same half a second is when he decides to put the brake on,
23:06which is the point of impact with the Citroen.
23:14He's now travelling back to the near side of the road.
23:18And at this point, the data shows us that he's put in a sudden right steering event.
23:27106 degrees, which is quite a large rightward steering input.
23:33And at this point, he's still travelling at 43 miles an hour.
23:39The back of the car is sort of swinging around until he makes contact with that lamppost.
23:46As 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.
23:59The electronic data is consistent with the evidence found at the scene.
24:06But it's also allowed Kath to track the road positioning of the Polo in the lead up to the crash.
24:13So this red line here is where that car would have been as it's come through that collision sequence.
24:22But where the data recording ends, the witness accounts continue.
24:32The driver emerged a couple of seconds after the car had come to a stop.
24:38I saw him get out of the driver's door of the VW Polo.
24:42I recall him walking around the car and looking at the male passenger who had fallen out of the vehicle.
24:47He didn't appear to check on him.
24:53He looked at him very briefly and then I heard him say, I gotta go.
25:03Did you say that and then run off?
25:05No problem.
25:06Still sticking with his version of events and denying being at the wheel.
25:14We still need to, by some method or other, put him in the driver's seat if that's where he was.
25:22The very last forensic opportunity available to us was DNA.
25:26With the driver's curtain airbag only deploying at the time of the crash, it's now crucial to this investigation.
25:42That's really significant.
25:43It's very unlikely that any other person would have touched that airbag at the point of the collision.
25:48So what we needed to do is compare the DNA on the airbag to the DNA of the person that we believed to be the driver.
26:00But as they waited for the results,
26:04it emerged that this wasn't the only serious offence that he was wanted for.
26:09He was suspected to be linked to a number of other offences, particularly an aggravated burglary along with a number of other people.
26:24They had been wearing balaclavas when they'd broken into a house.
26:28They'd threatened the occupants with knives and they demanded money.
26:34But the gang was captured on CCTV.
26:36Footage showed one of the burglars taking off his balaclava and discarding it at the side of the road.
26:46That was then seized.
26:51And tested for DNA.
26:55There were now two pieces of evidence with the potential to link him to crimes.
27:04That comparison was done.
27:07Both of those matched back to our driver.
27:13Now clearly at the wheel, at the time of the crash, there was no running away from the reality of his actions.
27:21The manner of driving that we can see, not only from the collision, but the data that we've got describes a person who has been absolutely reckless towards the safety of the people in the car, the people who might have been sharing the road with him.
27:39The man he left lying on the road after being thrown from the car went on to make a recovery.
27:47But the woman was left with life-changing injuries.
27:55Given the speeds, given the harshness of acceleration, the harshness of steering, I'm not surprised that he wasn't able to maintain control through that section of road.
28:05The driver admitted causing serious injury by dangerous driving, as well as aggravated burglary.
28:13He also pleaded guilty to driving whilst disqualified, dangerous driving and possession of drugs with intent to supply.
28:22He was jailed for almost 20 years.
28:28It was science that's allowed us to bring this offender to justice.
28:32And taking a dangerous offender off the streets.
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