Police accused of bungling motorbike death investigation
Schoolteacher David Hulse was hurled from his bike by a violent impact
It should have been a routine, though deeply tragic case. At about 10pm on August 7, 2003, schoolteacher David Hulse, a highly experienced motorcyclist, was riding along the A520 between Leek and Cellarhead in Staffordshire, a single- carriageway road. It was dark, but the weather was good, the road surface dry.
Mr Hulse, 37, lived in Trentham and was a father of two children, Ben, then three, and Sophie, nine. Witnesses who saw him on the road moments earlier that evening say he was riding safely, well within the speed limit.
At the village of Wetley Rocks â€" a notorious accident blackspot where two teenagers had been killed in a crash the previous evening â€" millionaire businessman Darrell Mansfield was leaving a barbecue at the home of one his staff, Gary Stone, at the wh eel of his Range Rover. The head of a vehicle recovery firm which had lucrative contracts with police, he eased out from a narrow driveway on to the main road.
Exactly what happened next remains the subject of bitter dispute. What isn’t in doubt is the outcome. Having been hurled from his bike by a violent impact, Mr Hulse lay sprawled across the roadway a few yards beyond the Range Rover.
Paramedics and a doctor arrived and tried to resuscitate him but their efforts were futile. He had suffered catastrophic head injuries. Before being driven away in an ambulance, he was dead.
Police block the part of the road close to where Mr Hulse diedÂ
For the past 14 years, Mr Hulse’s widow, Stacey, has been waging a lonely campaign, insisting that the police investigation into his death was botched, so that evidence suggesting that Mr Mansfield was wholly to blame for the tragedy was ignored. Until now, both the police and Mr Mansfield have vehemently denied her allegations.
Last week, however, Matthew Ellis, Staffordshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, took dramatic action. Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, he said he has asked an outside police force, South Wales, to conduct a fresh investigation â€" not only into Mr Hulse’s death, but into Stacey’s claims that previous police inquiries amounted to a cover-up.
He also acknowledged that the case is just one of a series of failings by Staffordshire police high lighted by this newspaper, which have already prompted claims that the force has been ‘out of control’.
The helmet Mr Hulse was wearing at the time of the crash. Paramedics and a doctor arrived and tried to resuscitate him but their efforts were futile
‘There are serious questions arising from this and the other cases which have already been reported by The Mail on Sunday,’ Mr Ellis said. ‘One of my priorities is transparency and when information emerges that raises concerns about any issue, historic or otherwise, I will make sure the police and other agencies take it seriously. Another police force will re-investigate this matter, and I have made its PCC aware of all the details.’
Meanwhile, we can reveal:
l Numerous witnesses at the scene of the fatal accident, including two police officers, have insisted Mr Mansfield reversed out of the driveway into Mr Hulse’s path â€" which would mean he could be prosecuted for causing death by danger ous driving, an offence that carries a maximum 14-year prison sentence;
l For reasons that have never been explained, these witnesses were not called to give evidence at Mr Mansfield’s trial for the much less serious charge of careless driving â€" of which he was found not guilty;
l Photographs suggest that Mr Hulse’s helmet would have provided vital evidence: it bore a circular dent which matched the metal ball on the end of the Range Rover’s rear tow bar â€" but it was unaccountably ‘lost’ by police;
l Stacey’s claims are backed by seasoned independent investigators â€" including Graham Payne, who spent 30 years in the Staffordshire police force;
l Mr Mansfield’s company, The Mansfield Group, still has vehicle recovery contracts with at least five police forces, including Staffordshire.
Businessman Darrell Mansfield was leaving a barbecue at the home of one his staff and denies he is wholly to blame for the accident
The case has disturbing parallels with the other Staffordshire police controversies investigated by the MoS. These include the gangland slaying of footballer Kevin Nunes, where in 2012 the Court of Appeal said that inducements provided by detectives to the main prosecution witness were a ‘serious perversion of the course of justice’, and the ‘body in a barrel’ murder of drug dealer Floyd Dodson. In this case, whistleblowing former Detective Inspector Joe Anderson exposed ‘systemic’ corruption in Staffordshire’s Sensitive Policing Unit â€" only to see senior officers ignore his allegations, and ruin his career.
More recently, Juan Gilly was falsely accused by Staffordshire police of wounding with intent, and then, after a judge threw out the charges, of a public order offence. Although acquitted in March, the cost has been high: his wife, Julie, a serving Staffordshire police officer, was hounded out of the force.
The death of David Hulse exposes yet more evidence of a police force unable or unwilling to follow proper investigative procedure. Usually, when a driver is involved in a fatal accident, he will be interviewed within a few days at a police station, by at least two officers, with the interview taped.
But after Mr Hulse’s death, four weeks elapsed before Mr Mansfield was asked to talk to the police and he was interviewed at his home by a single PC, Aaron Brown, who was not a traffic accident specialist. He did not record the interview, but only took notes.
Moreover, after a fatal accident, vehicles should not be moved. However, very soon after Mr Hulse’s death, Mr Mansfield moved his Range Rover back into the driveway â€" an act for which he was never sanctioned. This meant it was impossible to be sure exactly where it was when the accident occurred. In a statement, Mr Mansfield later said he had driven forwards, not backwards, out of the drive. ‘I would never have attempted reversing out of that particular location considering the dangers involved.’
He added that his host, Mr Stone, kept watch as he edged out: ‘I checked there were no vehicles approaching and pulled out of the driveway… as soon as I began to straighten up I saw a bright single light in the wing mirror of my vehicle… and could make out a motorcycle was coming at tremendous speed.’ The bike, he said, was ‘wobbling’ and the rider ‘seemed to be having problems controlling it’.
Mr Hulse’s widow, Stacey, has been waging a lonely campaign, insisting that the police investigation into her husband's death was botched
He tried to swerve to let it pass but ‘the motorcyclist came off his bike and the bike went bouncing up the road’. Neither the rider nor the bike ‘actually collided with my vehicle’, Mr Mansfield said.
It was because he was ‘concerned as to the position of my vehicle’ that instead of leaving it where it was, he moved it into the drive.
So why did police appear to flout the strict rules which govern serious road traffic accidents? There is a lingering suspicion that Mr Mansfield was given special treatment because of his association with Staffordshire police. He confirmed in his statement that his recovery firm had contracts with forces including Staffordshire: ‘Currently we operate for five Polic e Services and the work for Police is obtained by way of tender… normally for a three or five-year period.’
Six months after Mr Hulse’s death, Mr Mansfield was acquitted of careless driving by Stoke- on-Trent magistrates. From the moment the hearing began, Stacey, who is now a midwife, felt uneasy: ‘The prosecutor began with a glowing character reference for the man he was meant to be prosecuting. That seemed very strange.’
But that wasn’t all. Present at court were Catherine and David Hill, who had arrived at the scene of the accident moments after it occurred â€" before Mr Mansfield moved his vehicle, when, Mrs HIll said, it was still ‘broadside’ across the main road. She said later in a legal statement ‘it was obvious’ that what she called the ‘Jeep’ had ‘reversed out of the driveway into the road… I have no doubt whatsoever’.
Mrs Hill told Stacey she h ad contacted police saying she wanted to make a statement and was interviewed by PC Brown. She and her husband assumed they would be asked to give evidence. Unaccountably, they were not. Instead, the prosecutor told the court that Mr Mansfield had driven out forwards. Mrs Hill’s statement said: ‘I knew this was wrong and I told this to a police officer at the court, who arranged for me to see the Crown prosecutor, who did not seem as though he was interested in what my husband and I had to say.’
Stacey was interested. ‘I was shocked,’ she said yesterday. ‘I’d always thought the police were supposed to uphold the law. It was clear this was a whitewash.’
At the time of his death, she and David were separated. ‘That didn’t matter. Our children lost their father, and deserved to know the truth.’
Through a lawyer, she contacted Mr Payne, who, having served as a police sergeant, was an independent investigator. His findings were astonishing. Among others, he took statements from Dominique Brown and her father Roderick, who were overtaken by Mr Hulse just before the accident and noted how carefully he was riding.
Dominique said that when they reached the crash scene, ‘the front of the Range Rover was facing towards the farm driveway… it was obvious to me that the person driving [it], because of its position, must have reversed from the driveway… it could not have driven out in a forward manner’. She said her parents had contacted police, asking to be interviewed, but were rebuffed.
Mr Payne also found two police officers who did not appear at Mr Mansfield’s trial â€" who insisted he reversed out of the drive.
Unlike PC Brown, PC Craig Poole was a trained traffic specialist, and was the first officer to reach the scene. His statement said he spoke to Mr Stone, who told him Mr Mansfield had been ‘reversing, and then there was a collision with the motorcycle’. PC Poole added: ‘At no time whilst I was at the scene did anyone inform me that the Range Rover had emerged from the entrance other than by reversing.’
Backing him was Inspector Steven Finney, who arrived soon afterwards. He ‘carried out a more detailed examination’ which also suggested Mr Mansfield reversed out, ‘after which the motorcyclist’s head had come into contact with the rear of the Range Rover’.
At Mr Payne’s behest, top forensic investigator Brian Henderson conducted a reconstruction. The position of the bike, skid marks on the road and the laws of physics made him conclude that Mr Mansfield reversed out and Mr Hulse’s head struck the tow bar, and ‘the profile of that fixture fits the damage to the helmet’ seen in photographs.
But b y this time, the helmet had vanished.
Stacey’s journey to getting the case reopened has been gruelling. In 2006, the Independent Police Complaints Commission issued a report following a fresh inquiry by Leicestershire Police. It criticised some of Staffordshire’s procedures, but found nothing fundamentally wrong.
This time, she is more hopeful. She recently met PCC Mr Ellis, ‘and it meant a lot that after so long, he really seemed to be listening’.Â
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