‘Fake police officer’ tried to stop woman on M1, but does not want to appear in court

A fake police officer tried to stop a lone female driver on the M1, but police have said there will be no investigation and the man will not be spoken to in person. The woman says a man was driving close to her on the motorway in Leicestershire, waving what appeared to be a warrant and gesturing for her to stop.

But she did not stop, fearing a repeat of the Wayne Couzens attack on Sarah Everard. The woman told the BBC that when she got off the highway, she called the police and gave them the man’s license plate number.

It has now emerged that he was not an officer, but had worked for the police. Explaining what happened, the woman said the driver came towards her at high speed, then drove across the street and waved what appeared to be an official police card – with a royal coat of arms.

She said: ‘I immediately thought he was a police officer. I’m driving too fast, I have to stop. He leaned forward and held the steering wheel with one hand. He rode next to me the whole time and shouted at me to stop. He was really angry. I felt really stressed.

“He’s looking at me, not the road in front of him and the window wasn’t open on my side but it was on his passenger side and he’s waving the badge which I can clearly see is a black wallet with a police decal stuck on it. outside.

“I immediately thought of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. I was really scared. I was shaking. I was holding the steering wheel.”

The driver left the highway and the woman reported him, but by then she was in the Derbyshire force area. She was told he was a Northamptonshire police officer and the incident was reported to Northamptonshire.

The force determined that the man had worked for a contractor in a civilian role with the force months earlier. The complaint was then passed on to Leicestershire Police as the incident took place in their area.

All CCTV footage had been deleted by then and was not recorded until five months after the incident after it was claimed they were impersonating a police officer. This was almost the end of the six-month period for prosecuting such a crime.

As Leicestershire Police ran out of time, the man was not spoken to.

In a statement, it told BBC News: “Leicestershire Police takes any report of the impersonation of a police officer extremely seriously. However, on this occasion our response fell below the expected standard.”

Northamptonshire Police’s Professional Standards Department also apologized in a letter. It said: “Ultimately, you have been poorly served throughout the duration of this investigation.

“You felt upset after a man’s actions and this should have been investigated as a crime from the start. Unfortunately, early misinformation that this man was a police officer with Northamptonshire Police led to this becoming a complaints investigation rather than a criminal investigation. .”

In the letter, the force promised to speak to the man. He was contacted a month later and during a pre-arranged phone call, the man denied the allegations. Officers have not been to his home.

This was now twelve months after the incident.

Northamptonshire Police have also revealed that there is no record of the man handing in his identity card when he stopped working for the contractor.

It says that although the card would have had a Northamptonshire Police crest on it, it would have been stamped with the words “no warrant” and would not have been in a small black wallet. It added that card return practices have now been tightened.

The woman said: “I really feel let down. I still feel sick, panicky and scared. I would say he was a fake police officer who wanted to harm me.”