Police are criticised over A45 death

[dutchman]

A police watchdog has criticised the actions of officers from two forces after a pedestrian's death.

Wayne Teasdale, 35, of Coventry, died on 26 July, 2008. Police had received reports of a man on the A45 near the Dunchurch roundabout in Warwickshire.

A Northamptonshire Police officer had earlier dropped him off in a position that the Independent Police Complaints Commission said was dangerous.

It also said Warwickshire Police did not appreciate the risk to Mr Teasdale.

Mr Teasdale had been at an event at the Billing Aquadrome in Northampton with friends but had decided to walk home, instead of camping as planned, during the early hours of 26 July.

The friends said Mr Teasdale had appeared drunk.

He had called the police and told them he was lost and had smoked cannabis.

Police eventually found Mr Teasdale and took him to the county boundary with Warwickshire, and dropped him at a service station on the A45 near Dunchurch at about 1042 BST.

Between then and 1130 BST when he was hit by a car. Warwickshire Police got a number of calls from the public about a man walking alongside and on the A45 carriageway.

The IPCC said the decision by a Northamptonshire officer to drop him along the A45 was inappropriate.

It also said the police officer and staff member in Warwickshire Police's control room had failed to appreciate the risk posed to Mr Teasdale.

It added that a police officer and a special constable assigned to deal with the reports, and who stopped along the way to deal with a driver using a mobile phone, responded "below the acceptable standard".

Three police constables, a special constable and a member of police staff, have all received words of advice in relation to their failures, the IPCC said.

Warwickshire Police said it accepted the findings and wanted to reassure Mr Teasdale's family that lessons had been learnt.

A spokeswoman for Northamptonshire Police said it accepted the findings and offered its deepest sympathy to Mr Teasdale's family.