According to a court inquest, a young woman named Bethany Leese woke up from a coma to discover her boyfriend and yet to be born son had been killed in a horror car crash after the driver driving with no car lights, panicked upon seeing a police car.
On April 15, 2018, Ms Leese, then 18, was travelling with her boyfriend Joshua Sanna in a car his friend borrowed him when an unmarked police car spotted that Sanna’s car had no car lights on.
When Mr Sanna saw that the police had flashed lights on his car, he ‘panicked’ and sped off, leading his car to drive the wrong way as he attempted to run away.
Moments later they smashed head-on into two other vehicles and the couple were catapulted through the windscreen. Mr Sanna and their unborn baby both died, according to the inquest.
Ms Leese,who is still recovering after having brain surgery, told Stoke-on-Trent Coroners’ Court: ‘I feel like I lost my life in that crash.
‘I woke up from a coma and asked for my boyfriend only to be told he had died.’
‘Mr Sanna would have paid someone to borrow the car but i don’t know who it belonged to’.
‘Mr Sanna did not have a full license and feared he would have been done for taking without consent’ and decided to flee.”
A Staffordshire Police spokesman said to Metro UK: ‘An IOPC investigation was conducted alongside an investigation by the Staffordshire Police and West Midlands Serious Collision Investigation Unit. ‘Their report and findings will be heard by a jury over the course of the coming weeks.’
The pursuing officer, identified only as L33, said he decided to pursue Mr Sanna after getting go ahead from the Staffordshire Police control room.
The officer said as he was pursuing the car and they neared colleagues waiting to deploy a stinger, Sanna came straight across over a tarmacked area, and along the A50 the wrong way’.
The court heard the officer then aborted the pursuit and pulled over. A short while, later he was informed the Toyota had been involved in a collision. An investigation from the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IOPC) was launched in the wake of the 2018 incident.
