Finding into death of Raymond Noel Lindsay Thomas
Deceased
Raymond Noel Lindsay Thomas
Demographics
30y, male
Date of death
2017-06-25
Finding date
2021-09-20
Cause of death
Multiple injuries sustained in a motor vehicle collision (driver)
AI-generated summary
Raymond Noel Thomas, a 30-year-old Aboriginal man, died from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle collision while being pursued by Victoria Police. Police initially conducted urgent duty driving at 134 kph without emergency lights to intercept an unregistered vehicle on a minor traffic matter. When lights and sirens were activated in a 50 kph residential zone, the driver fled at 150 kph. The pursuit lasted 21 seconds before the Commodore collided with oncoming vehicles at the crest of a rise. The coroner found the pursuit was not justified under policy because no serious risk to public safety existed before police involvement; the dangerous driving resulted from the intercept attempt itself. Key clinical/safety lessons include the need for prescriptive pursuit policies, adequate risk assessment training using simulators and video, ensuring officer awareness of vehicle speeds, and recognizing how adverse police interactions may affect Aboriginal community responses.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Drugs involved
Contributing factors
- Police decision to pursue vehicle on minor traffic infraction without identifying serious pre-existing risk to public safety
- Lack of prescriptive policy guidance leading to subjective risk assessment by officers
- Urgent duty driving at high speed without emergency lights prior to intercept attempt
- Absence of speed awareness by pursuing officer during high-speed pursuit
- Inadequate risk assessment during rapidly escalating pursuit scenario
- Policy ambiguity regarding timing of risk assessment relative to police involvement
- Limited practical and simulator-based training on pursuit policy
- Potential fear response by Aboriginal driver due to historical adverse police interactions
Coroner's recommendations
- Pursuits Policy mandate that a serious risk to health or safety of a person must exist before the decision to intercept, that is before police involvement
- Training must ensure there is no scope for interpretation of the above requirement
- Policy must require neither urgent duty driving nor pursuit be conducted unless police are always aware of their speeds
- In every pursuit, irrespective of outcome, policy require members to record for review the serious risk which existed before the decision to intercept, that is before police involvement
- Pursuit training to include both practical and theoretical elements
- Use of simulators and in-car video footage from actual pursuits in training
- All police vehicles permitted to conduct pursuits be fitted with fully calibrated LED speed display viewable by observer
- Consideration of fitting in-car video systems to all vehicles permitted to conduct pursuits
- Pursuit training canvas the disproportionate representation of Aboriginal people in pursuit-related deaths
- Alert police members to the possibility that complex historical relationship between Aboriginal communities and police may inform Aboriginal responses to police intervention
- Whenever a pursuit is terminated, members must immediately disengage, pull over, and deactivate lights and sirens
- Rigorous review of every pursuit to ensure compliance with policy
Full text
Related cases
Source and disclaimer
This page reproduces or summarises information from publicly available findings published by Australian coroners' courts. Coronial is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any coronial court or government body.
Content may be incomplete, reformatted, or summarised. All court orders for redaction and non-publication are respected; documents with technically defective redaction have been excluded from the database entirely. Always refer to the original court publication for the authoritative record.
Copyright in original materials remains with the relevant government jurisdiction. AI-generated summaries and tagging are for educational purposes only, may contain inaccuracies, and must not be treated as legal documents. We welcome feedback for correction —