Liverpool crash witness recalls missing car by inches: ‘Panic, screaming, commotion'
Witnesses to the Liverpool FC parade car crash recalled the terrifying moment the vehicle missed them by just inches, as 'panic, screaming, and commotion' set in amongst crowds gathered in the city centre on Monday (26 May).
Paul O'Brien, from County Meath in Ireland, said he saw the vehicle driving through the crowd 'at quite a considerable speed'.
He told The Independent that fans were 'heroic' as they jumped onto the vehicle to slow it down, with others pushing Mr O'Brien and his family aside as they were in the car's path.
Four children were among the 27 people rushed to hospital following the crash, while 20 others were treated at the scene for minor injuries.
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Last year, GMP recorded a reduction of eight per cent in total crime: residential burglaries down 11 per cent, theft down 28 per cent and vehicle offences down over 18 per cent. It must be deeply frustrating for Watson and his officers that the Government, concerned about jail overcrowding, and arguing that short sentences don't help prisoners to reform, is pursuing a policy of replacing so-called 'short prison sentences' with electronic tagging. As Sir Stephen remarked to those of us at the Policy Exchange meeting: 'Short sentences may not work for offenders, but they do work for victims, and I'm on the victims' side.' Many blame the requirement to investigate so-called 'non-crime hate incidents' as a reason for police forces' distraction from dealing with what used to be the bread and butter of crime-fighting. 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When film emerged a year ago showing one of Watson's officers kicking and stamping on the head of a 19-year-old, Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, during a fracas at Manchester Airport, Burnham made sure to see the police footage of the whole incident. This showed that Amaaz had, just before, broken the nose of a female police officer in a sustained assault. Burnham went on the radio to warn those marching in support of Amaaz: 'There are two sides of this complicated situation... people's careers are put on the line. We feel for the police officers who were injured.' Would London's mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, have done the same? And do the Home Office apparatchiks want someone like Watson to be the country's top cop? When I asked a former Met Detective Chief Inspector, David Spencer, now Policy Exchange's head of Crime and Justice, he was not encouraging: 'The Government should replicate the Watson playbook of police leadership across every force. 'My biggest fear is that the current system is more likely to suppress future Watsons coming through.' If that is the case, public confidence in the police will slide still lower – possibly with consequences that no government could survive.
