Original subtitles

Every serious incident on the road requires forensic examination.

Here we go.

SIREN BLARES

And inside the cordons,

dedicated officers take on this challenge.

That is a smash, innit?

There is little bits of debris all over the road.

What the hell has done that?

This is the Collision Investigation Team from Gwent Police.

Has he come in and gone back out?

A black Citroen that we'll be looking for.

Guys, unless you're a witness,

let's move away now and give them some space, come on!

He's tried to avoid it. He's seen it coming.

Tracking down the evidence...

I think that's a unique fit.

..to get to the truth.

You know, that really is a significant intrusion, isn't it?

Speed is definitely a factor in this case, unfortunately.

Potentially, the slower he's going,

the more trouble he's in.

All in a day's work for the Crash Detectives.

4.30am in the morning...

..we had a knock on the door.

It was two police officers.

You just don't think that your son is never going to come home

after a night out.

He was just trying to get home.

And absolutely did not deserve to die on the side of this mountain.

Have you been given an update, in relation to this scene?

Looks like it's a hit-and-run.

We've got a single casualty, confirmed deceased,

and no vehicle.

A 19-year-old man has been found lying dead

on this rural mountain road.

And the pressure's on to find evidence which could lead to

the vehicle and driver involved.

Obviously, as you can see, there is little bits...

..of debris all over the road.

These are all parts off, erm, the possible vehicle.

There may be identifying marks on there.

It's vital that this debris is preserved,

and not destroyed by cars which are waiting to leave the scene.

Just stay as central in this lane as you can,

and you can make your way out.

All right, cheers, guys.

See all these little bits?

So, you've got them strewn all over the place.

That looks like a bit off it.

I'll have to collect them all

and try to piece them all together.

Tony will need to establish how the man's body has come to rest

at the edge of the carriageway.

And he's found evidence on the road surface suggesting

where he was struck.

There seems to be a pile of vomit central to this lane.

And then, we start to get the debris shortly after that.

The priority now is to track down the vehicle responsible.

WALKIE BEEPS

Go ahead.

But patrol officers are struggling.

Yeah, no worries, mate.

To stand a chance of locating the car that's fled this scene,

they're going to need details of make or model.

So, it's up to Tony to give them more.

There's two good pieces of bodywork up there.

The pieces look like front bumper,

and they're black in colour.

There's lots of plastic in here.

Don't want to disturb it too much.

This is the front valance -

so just underneath the bumper, there's a little plastic valance,

which is this.

And you can just see there...

..the two chevrons of a Citroen badge.

Alpha 13326.

Go ahead. It looks like it'll be a black Citroen that we'll be

looking for at the moment.

What model, I don't know, but it'll be a black Citroen.

You know, like the splitter on the bottom of the bumper? Yeah.

The black trim? So, it's a valance.

So, it's off the suspect vehicle.

I'll go and have a look at the part number,

see what that comes up with.

Hiya, Shell, can you make a note of this number, please?

968344...

Hopefully that'll tell us what model Citroen that should go on,

and that'll obviously narrow down our search.

As inquiries continue to track down the vehicle...

..Tony needs to know how and why the pedestrian was struck.

The likelihood is he was walking...

..either this way or that way...

..but has been laid with his...

..right-hand side of his body facing the car.

He is at this position, or that position.

I think it's more the...

..being sick there, in the car.

A vehicle travelling normal in the lane would be nearside wheel.

Offside wheel.

So, he's just left of centre...

..and it's all low-down damage on the front nearside of the car.

WALKIE BEEPS

It has come up with is Citroen C3 spoiler.

Yeah, if that's what it's come up as,

ask them to start doing whatever checks they can about

black C3s in Gwent.

The likelihood is, at that time in the morning,

he'll be a local.

Right, no worries, I'll go over the air now.

Cheers!

Can you do a check within a 5-10-mile radius of the area,

see how many black Citroen C3s we have in this vicinity?

As the hunt is ramping up...

Ooh.

..the debris here could reveal even more.

Give me a date of manufacture.

12th month of 2010...

..by the look of that.

The markers will allow us to date that particular part,

so it'll then narrow down the year of manufacture of the vehicle.

In a case like this,

any suspect car will need to examined by other officers.

WO Alpha 13.

So, Tony's collision investigation colleagues are standing by.

Hi, Tony, it's Chris, we're both in,

in the starting blocks.

What's the SP up there?

If I give you a part number, can you have a look through?

It's a spoiler, on the front, we think, of a C3.

Fire away.

We've got 9683...

If you haven't got a vehicle at the scene... ..85...

..it's a race against time to get to that vehicle

before people start to alter the evidence.

Hold on, we've got a result.

It is the Mk2, from 2009 onwards.

Excellent, that's good.

At least we're narrowing it down.

So, that information went out to everyone who was looking.

The traffic officers were scouring the area

to try and find the actual vehicle involved.

And one of the units said,

"We found a vehicle that matches that description".

DEREK: Located a vehicle parked unattended.

OVER RADIO: It is a black C3 with front-end damage to it...

Where? ..parked up just off... Where, where, where?

..Ivor Street, Blaenavon.

It's the type of make-model that we suspect may be involved in

the collision last night.

TONY: Alpha 13 on the last, when you say you've got front-end damage,

what sort of damage, and how much?

The front bumper is hanging off, damage to the front grille.

We knew what the registration plate was.

So, I ran that through ANPR.

The last hit was 11am in the morning the previous day.

There was no obvious damage to it.

Alpha 12, we'll go up and have a look at that now.

I knew whatever damage we were going to find once we went up there

has happened in the last 24 hours.

DEREK: They're here, they're here.

We get to the vehicle,

the road's been cordoned off.

We're looking for how that vehicle has been involved

in that incident.

TONY: Have you taken a nice photograph of the

bottom-left corner, I'm hoping?

Check your phone, caller.

That looks very much like...

..the bumper I have here.

That's great, that is, mate.

Would he have known he's hit him?

Bloody right, he would have.

If this is the car involved,

they need to know how just long it's been on this street.

Where the car is parked, there's CCTV on the shop.

So, they'll be going to see if they can get the CCTV

from the shop, as well.

DEREK: OK, we're in the Co-op manager's office now, viewing CCTV.

Yeah.

That's it.

RADIO BEEPS

WO, from CCTV,

got that vehicle parking up 03.22, which was three minutes prior

to the 999 call.

At this point, the man's body is still lying undiscovered

on the mountain road, just one mile away.

The driver now clearly has some questions to answer.

As we were looking at the vehicle...

..next thing I heard was someone saying,

"What you doing?

"That's my car."

Listen, just to let you know, the bodycam is on, OK?

OK, let me just stop you there for a minute, OK, sir?

Jump in there for a second.

Give me two minutes, and I'll explain.

RADIO: 1512 to Sierra Whisky 01.

Yeah, go on.

Can you arrest him?

ROB: If you just turn the phone off, then. Yeah, yeah.

I'll put it down here... That's fine, OK.

At this moment in time, OK, I'll have to say that I'm arresting you

on suspicion of failing to stop at an RTC.

Failing to stop at the scene of an RTC, a road traffic collision.

OK, just listen to me for a second, OK?

I'm also arresting you for driving without due care and attention.

OK? Which has then resulted in causing the death of a person.

So, you don't have to say anything. It may harm your defence if you

do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on

in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

I obviously can't discuss with you everything at the moment, OK?

It will obviously come to light obviously further down

in the investigation.

In relation to your phone, OK, I'm just going to take that off you.

OK. I have to remind you that you're under caution,

and everything is being recorded,

So, you do now have to say anything, OK?

Just five hours after the 999 call was made,

this suspected hit-and-run driver is now under arrest.

What I need from you is some saliva for a drugs test.

Do you take drugs at all?

When was the last time you smoked some cannabis?

Half hour ago?

Right, get some saliva, poke your tongue out for me.

That's it.

Have you got any cannabis on you now?

It's only been three minutes, and it's a fail.

He's smoked cannabis in the last half hour.

Oh, as you do.

With the driver now on his way to custody,

his car has been seized and recovered

for a more detailed examination.

And from this perspective,

the extent of the damage is clear.

He's actually moved the entire chassis.

I know it's bent them.

He's pushed this wheel back, look.

It wouldn't have been steering straight, that's for sure.

He's gotta...force it past...

..that, and then, coming back...

..underneath here.

To start bending solid pieces of metal

takes a huge amount of force.

So, these are all the bits...

All the main bits that we know about.

Don't think we've got anything to clip that into yet, have we?

But they still need to know if debris found at the scene of

the crash came from this car.

Erm...

Don't think this fits on any other car.

I think that's a unique fit. Yeah.

Tell me, in as much detail as you can remember,

about the collision that you were involved in this morning.

The driver's maintaining he struck something

he thought had been fly-tipped.

But, without his engine running,

just how he DID he get his car to where it was spotted by police?

RHYS: To coast that far, it was a approximately a mile.

Yes, there was some downhill sections,

but there was an awful lot of uphill sections, as well.

And...it didn't add up.

But with no witnesses to the crash,

his story needs checking out.

Police vehicle examiners are now carrying out

an inspection of the car.

As part of the investigation, one of the areas we've been asked

to look at is if whether the vehicle's running.

That's because, if the power failed in the way the driver describes,

the engine should not start now.

ENGINE STARTS

The vehicle is running. There's no fuel cut-off,

and there's no engine-immobiliser that's kicked in.

I started your car first time.

I had all your lights working first time.

ENGINE REVS

High-beam, please, mate!

Your car was running and working.

Engine, brakes, lights were all working.

This is footage taken from the co-op, OK?

The further we went into the investigation,

the more his story was just unravelling.

At every turn.

Can you understand my confusion?

With your engine not running,

you've rolled up two hills to go there.

So, just how will they get to the truth of what happened

on a rural, mountain road?

You wouldn't be thinking to start looking for CCTV.

I know there is none.

But I was made aware the next day of a couple living across

the other side of the valley.

They said their cameras, they think may have captured something.

All you could see was lights,

looks like, on a mountain far away,

travelling across.

TONY: I've gone through it, found out which one

is the offending vehicle.

And the incident occurs just around there.

The footage reveals the driver continues along the road...

..and then, down the hill, into the town...

..parking outside the shop.

Moments later, he's emerging from the end of that street,

walking towards home.

Meanwhile, other drivers have now discovered the pedestrian's body...

..and have stopped to call for help.

So, if they've reacted to the pedestrian lying in the road,

why didn't the driver?

The team have taken his car back to the scene to reconstruct

the night of the collision.

The driver claims he was using his headlights on full beam -

their brightest setting.

You want to recreate what that driver would have seen

on that road at that time.

We'll have an officer in black clothing,

on the point of impact.

When he comes into view, that's the distance, obviously,

he can see from the cast of the headlights.

Then we can work out how much of a view he had,

and how long he had to see that person.

They're starting with the car at 50 metres away

from the point of impact.

But, before the officer is even in position...

Have a look at this now.

..Tony's already been taken by surprise.

The lights are casting way beyond the point of impact.

I can see way past the 50 metres.

With the lights casting further than expected,

they now need to move the car back.

Where I thought I was going to be going forward, I'm going back. Yeah.

So, I need to go to a point where I don't see you. Definitely.

As part of the reconstruction,

you also need someone to lie on the road -

which, in this, circumstance was me.

The image of that vehicle looming towards you...

..it was sobering.

Reminds you why we're doing this.

This is at 70 metres.

This is on dipped headlights.

And...that is main beam.

Well, that's at 70 metres, and he's in view.

We can see you at 70 metres.

Those headlights are far better than I thought they were going to be.

Establishing how fast the car was travelling is now key

to this investigation.

In this case, speed is significant

not because of how fast they were going,

but because it gives you a window on to how much time

the driver had to react.

When I was asked to look at the CCTV to see if I could get a speed,

I wasn't confident we were going to get anything from this.

It was a kilometre away.

It was at night.

But then, I managed to get some daytime footage, as well.

We can overlay footage,

and basically turn night-time into day,

but still have the headlights coming through.

There was shrubs and trees on the side of the road.

So, using those references,

I was able to work out that the vehicle was travelling

between 54 and 57mph.

This painstaking analysis has revealed an average speed

over a short distance, leading up to the impact.

But there could be a way to be even more accurate.

They've just discovered that electronic data

was generated within the vehicle at the time of the impact.

The car has noticed it's in a collision,

but not enough energy to set off the airbags.

But it has set off the pretensioners on the seat belts.

Obviously, this one, as well.

So, it actually fires and draws the seat belt a little bit tighter,

so the person can't move about too much in the collision.

And, as this system activated,

data was stored on the air bag control module,

which has been removed for analysis.

We've had the data back which shows that,

at the time the seat belt pretensioners fired -

so at the time of the collision -

this vehicle was doing 61mph.

At this speed, the driver had almost three seconds to react

to the pedestrian lying in the road.

All he had to do was move out 90 centimetres to the centre.

He has got the time, he's got the space...

...but he's still done nothing,

and has just left the scene.

And only he knows why he didn't stop.

When the driver was arrested,

he admitted to having just smoked cannabis.

But tests revealed there was a potentially toxic level

of amphetamine in his blood.

DOOR SQUEAKS OPEN

After you.

He insisted he'd only taken drugs after the crash.

He denied causing death by driving without due care and attention,

but he was found guilty.

Anyone dressed in dark clothing on an unlit road,

they are difficult to anticipate and spot.

This driver, whatever he said he saw,

he saw it at some distance...

..but still did not take any evasive action.

And he had time to do so.

The driver was jailed for three years,

reduced to two years on appeal -

as there was no way to prove exactly when he'd taken the drugs.

COLIN DOBSON: The impact has been absolutely devastating.

He knew, I believe, what he had done.

To drive off and to just leave the scene was

a massively cowardly act...

..that showed he had no regard for anyone other than himself.