School car crash - are the police being thrown under the bus?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15732723/Police-biased-female-killed-girls-crash-Wimbledon.html

I remember starting a thread on this some time ago and I think the general conclusion was that epilepsy (undiagnised) would in all likelihood be the reason for this tragedy given the cirumstances. there was a long discussion about the nature of this consition.

There was also the feeling that the parents should grieve and let go after this tragedy yet it appears the thing has escalated to involve racism and questioning of the investigation resulting to my mind the police being pressured to make another arrest simply because the senior met didn't like the optics of this rather than material change in circusrance.

Are those investigating officers being thrown.under the bus because the met politically would like to see something done here with a rich white woman being talked when there seems to be no evidence at all she didn't have a seizure? If it realistically can't be proven a seizure didn't occur aren't we headed for a painful trial for the parents where they gain will feel justice won't be done???

I have no idea of the likely cause, but I do know that if for any reason I had done that I would never be able to drive again. Its astounding to me that she is willing to still.
Even more so if it was a medical incident, I would be too scared of it happening again.

Is that you Claire? I find it interesting you have ignored the question earlier when someone asked if you are “Mrs Freemantle” and you have spelt the surname incorrectly every single time you’ve mentioned it, almost as if you want to be certain this thread doesn’t come up if someone searches for Claire Freemantle online. It’s not as if the spelling you’ve used is even likely to be correct, and you’ve used “Mrs” rather than her first name - again, is this a way of ensuring this doesn’t appear in online search?

It all seems a bit odd given how much you are willing to defend this woman. There hasn’t been a trial, so why are you acting as if it’s certain she is innocent? 2 children are dead because of her. That is a fact. The parents, and a lot of the public, would like to know that the police investigated thoroughly given no charges were brought in the end. Do you have children? If so, wouldn’t you want to be certain everything was investigated and not the word of the person that killed them taken as gospel? If the police made mistakes, or worse made deliberate decisions not to do a thorough investigation, of course they should be investigated now. It needs to be uncovered as to why they didn’t do their jobs properly at the time, to ensure that never happens again.

None of us can know if CF had a seizure that day. I’d be curious to know what the witness statements are who have said they weren’t given the opportunity to give them. I’d like to know if CF was claiming she’d had a seizure immediately at the scene, or if this defence only came up after speaking to a lawyer. I’d like to know if any doctor suggested that is what happened before she/her lawyer said it. I’d like to know if she was tested for drugs or alcohol in her system. I’d like to know if records were checked to see if she was on her phone at the time of the accident. I’d like to know if it was investigated if there’s any evidence she was up all night the night before so maybe fell asleep at the wheel. I’m sure there are many other questions that people, particularly the parents and staff at the school would like and need to know where answered at the time.

I’ve read things that suggested CF had posted online about having had a seizure before that day, but this has been scrubbed from the internet. If that is true, it sounds like she shouldn’t have been driving at all, and therefore should be charged. If she did have a seizure, and it was her first, she shouldn’t have been driving for a year following that seizure, and only started again if no more seizures and on medication to control them. Is she on any medication for seizures? If she continued driving after the accident, that suggests either she really doesn’t give a shit, or she knows she didn’t have a seizure so isn’t worried about it happening “again”.

There is no witch hunt. The parents etc just want to know that there was a thorough investigation. They lost their children FFS. You seem to have more sympathy for the woman in the car who doesn’t appear to have any remorse and certainly hasn’t felt any repercussions than you do for the parents of the children who lost their lives that day. Why is that?

indeed - but there is a lot of suspicion that the investigation was not thorough enough and did not follow correct procedure. It may end up that there is still no prosecution but there are lots of unanswered questions which need to be cleared up.

Excellent post 👏🏼

I must admit I do find it very hard to reconcile killing two children (whether through a medical episode or through carelessness) with then apparently carrying on driving (if that is correct), especially in a city with very good transport links.

I don’t think that in either of those scenarios (a random seizure or a moment or more’s carelessness) I would want to get back behind the wheel for the foreseeable future.

Duplicate post.

Duplicate post.

Duplicate post.

Sorry, MN is doing bizarre things when trying to post!

Very insensitive thread title. Can you ask MN to change it? It’s awful.

Its probably just general incompetence and lack of effort you see in most jobs.
if i were on a jury i would want to know
did she have any previous episodes and
who suggested epilepsy and when.

I would think it likely cps decided to go no further once epilepsy was suggested as thats going to be hard to prove and if its a first seizure with no warning.

If the seizure defence isnt/wasnt coming from the nhs then yes id be suspicious. (Though reasonsonably could be nhs incompetence).

Anyway if there were no medical event wouldnt there be signs of braking? Were there?

In this case hopefully they did breathalize and do bloods for drugs as that likely strengthens the case it was epilepsy.

I guess if it goes to court maybe we will hear what witnesses saw re whether she was out of it in a way that looked like post seizure etc

One of my close friends had a first grand mal seizure out of the blue at 46. It does happen. Fortunately she was at home on the sofa and her teenage DC called an ambulance.

She immediately reported it to the DVLA (well, as soon as she was out of hospital) and then had to wait until she had been through various tests and appointments before she could even start applying to get her license back. It took over 2 years before she could drive again, and she was so nervous at first. She still chooses to use public transport for long journeys and is super cautious about driving in general now - eg if she has slept badly she won't drive just in case. She also sold her campervan and hasn't replaced it because she felt she didn't want to take the risk of driving a large vehicle again. All of which demonstrates the sort of attitude I'd expect a responsible adult to take in such a situation.

Or if she had had a row with someone and was driving fast and angry, or upset and tearful and not concentrating.

I guess she was taken off to hospital so wasn't interrogated thoroughly at the time and if the epileptic seizure was made up she had a bit of time to think about what to say. She could be lying but if they can't prove it one way or another medically, I'm not sure how you can discover anything else retrospectively. I don't remember anything is difficult to disprove. And may be true if the trauma of what she had just done hit her.

Road deaths rarely result in a custodial sentence when they reach court; if there was sufficient evidence to bring a case of death by careless driving then the sentence would be more likely to be a period of disqualification and a suspended sentence. If it were accidental or a result of a medical episode, why go to such extreme lengths to avoid taking responsibility? You're not getting sent to prison for either of those, so why not just take the disqualification and give the families some feeling of justice?

OP, out of curiosity, would you have posted this if the races were reversed? So 2 white girls were killed, and a rich, Asian woman was Claire in this scenario? I ask because out of curiosity, having recognised your username, I did an advanced search and, in my opinion, you seem to have an element of unconscious bias towards non-whites.

You don’t have to answer that here, but I would encourage you to be honest with yourself about this.

some1 answered this: the diagnosed epileptic sufferer has to take meds & prove free of ‘fits’ for a decent amount of time/?year.

@IAxolotlQuestions I'm pretty sure that when I refer patients to the "first fit" clinic, they have a brain scan. I'd certainly want one if I had a fit, because it's a way that rumours can present.

A colleague had what she called a "funny turn" when driving, thankfully managed to pull over and rang 999 from her car on the hard shoulder of the motorway. She was taken to hospital and was deemed to have had a seizure. She had a full year before she could drive again and was put onto medication.

Nothing adds up with this story at all and my heart aches for the parents who lost their children and have been essentially told to suck it up. They are the ones I'll save my sympathy for.

The thing that stood out for me was that if she'd been driving a normal car, rather than a monster 4x4, the girls probably wouldn't have died. She's one of the "I'm alright Jack" people, who want to drive a tank for their own safety and status, and to hell with anyone around them.

If she was driving a high end car or a new car, there would be an Event Data Recorder which police can access to see the speed, brake pedal position, accelerator pedal position, steering wheel angle, 'delta-V' (severity of impact), airbag deployment and seatbelt status. This has been mandatory in new cars in the EU since 2024.

So the police will be able to see if a driver took any evasive action. If an epileptic fit was responsible and the driver was completely unaware of the situation, it's possible that you'd see hard acceleration (foot already on accelerator and pushed during fit), deceleration (foot comes off pedals during fit), a return of the wheel to centre (let go of the wheel), or potentially a rapid change in angle of steering wheel followed by return to centre (gripping wheel and slumping, then releasing as lost consciousness). They would be able to see if the steering wheel was controlled and brakes were applied, which would indicate awareness.

All I know is that there was something very strange about the whole thing from the start. And why is she still driving, let alone a fucking great big tank? If she'd been driving a car suitable for the city, the girls most probably wouldn't have died.

If that’s true it would be illegal for her to drive. You have to send your licence to the DVLA after medical events like that and can’t get it back until a long amount of time has passed. And surely she’s under scrutiny?!

You don't know that it can't be proven, which is why this needs to be looked at again.

A scan might show brain damage from a seizure, or might not, even if there had been a seizure. But it couldn't date the damage to the car crash.

The diagnostic options might include:

Blood tests, within about 20 minutes of the event. These could neither prove nor rule out a seizure. But some results could suggest that there may have been a seizure.

MRI scan, which could show damage from seizures but not when they happened.

EEG which could show seizure-type activity at the time of the test, possibly provoked through lights, breathing exercises or eye tracking exercises.

So you could certainly assemble evidence that she had epilepsy and that she had at some point suffered a seizure (though all of these tests could still be negative in someone with epilepsy)

That, combined with the tracking information @Lougle mentions could have persuaded the CPS they had a less than 50% chance of conviction - hence no charges.

Obviously if the police investigation means that there has been any falsification, lost evidence, skipping steps, the chance of charges could go up again. But meanwhile it is a tough problem where it may well have been possible to show that she'd had a seizure (but not when), and to show that she had driven the car like someone experiencing a seizure. I don't see how it will ever be possible to prove the seizure outright though, or to disprove it.

It's tempting to blame her for driving that car, but presumably that was and still is legal. Maybe a law that should be scrutinised. I believe she couldn't have driven a car like this in Paris, for example