Cleveland police and fire brigade legal war over smash

Jun 21 2009 by Phil Doherty, Sunday Sun

POLICE and fire services in Cleveland are engaged in a legal war over who was responsible for a head-on collision between a fire engine and a squad car, both answering emergency calls.

The fire engine and the police car met at high speed at the junction of Borough Road and Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough, just before 6am on February 17, 2006. In all, three firefighters and two police constables suffered injuries and both vehicles were badly damaged.

In December last year a judge ruled that the fire engine driver, Jeffrey Craggy, bore two-thirds of the responsibility for the collision and the police car driver one-third.

But now the Chief Constable of Cleveland Police is challenging that ruling at the Court of Appeal in London.

Granting the Chief Constable permission to appeal today, Lord Justice Wilson said the police car was answering a top priority emergency call after a report that four, possibly armed, men had been seen fighting in the street.

The traffic lights at the junction were green in the police car’s favour and, as it entered the junction at about 50mph, it slammed into the fire engine, which was answering a separate emergency call and was going at about 15mph.

Lawyers for Mr Craggy argued that the police car was going too fast, but the police countered that the fire engine driver entered the junction when his view was obscured and should have treated the red light as a “give way” sign.

Barrister Dan Edwards, for the police, argued the squad car was on a straight road, the lights were in its favour and, even had it only been going at 30mph, the collision would still have been inevitable.

Lord Justice Wilson, sitting with Lord Justice Ward, said it was “arguable” that the judge had placed too heavy a burden on the police driver when he said that he should have anticipated the risk of another emergency vehicle entering the junction.

The Chief Constable’s challenge to the ruling that the police car driver was one third to blame for the collision will now go forward to a full Appeal Court hearing before three judges.

At the Middlesbrough County Court hearing last year, Mr Craggy was awarded £833 damages for his relatively minor injuries and a judge had earlier expressed doubts as to whether an Appeal Court hearing was “proportionate” with only that sum of money at stake.

However, Mr Edwards told the judges that two police officers and two other firemen - some of them more seriously injured than Mr Craggy - are also mounting damages claims and the sums involved could turn out to be substantial.

No date was set for the full hearing of the Chief Constable’s appeal.