Police Pursuit Double Fatality Occurs After NSW Police Ignore Coronial Recommendations

The New South Wales Police Force is conducting a critical incident investigation into the death of two women, who were travelling across Gundungurra land down the Old Hume Highway in the Sydney suburb of Camden South, when a 31-year-old man involved in a police pursuit crashed into their car on Saturday, 14 February 2026. And NSW police reported afterwards that the initial pursuit was ended in Bankstown.

Yet, CCTV footage obtained by Nine News in the days following revealed that despite claims by NSW police commissioner Mal Lanyon that the pursuit was terminated at a point in the road 40-odd kilometres before the assailant fatally struck another car carrying civilians, three unmarked police cars and one marked police vehicle with sirens blaring, had been in pursuit moments before impact.

Allegations that a false explanation relating to how this NSW police pursuit did occur have been made more serious, due to the fact that the NSW Police Safe Driving Policy, which relates to how officers should approach car chases, has been scrutinised for many years in relation to pursuits that end in collisions and deaths, while the force has been reluctant to release the policy to the public.

The long-term gripe relating the policy has become much more pertinent since the report into the NSW coronial inquiry into the death of Harri Tapani Jokinen, which was a result of a police pursuit, was published on 16 May 2025, and it recommended that police only initiate pursuits if police are satisfied that a serious risk to the health and safety of a person exists prior to the chase.

This issue is further compounded when NSW police released its responses to the multiple recommendations that NSW deputy state coroner Rebecca Hosking handed down, as the agency simply “noted” each suggestion, which means that it had considered them but wouldn’t be making the reforms. However, if the changes had been made, they may have prevented the latest fatalities.

Safe driving policy shrouded in mystery

“If the NSW police continued the pursuit of this vehicle past when they said it was terminated, then the community need to know why they haven’t been honest,” said NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson, in respect of the suggestion that the NSW top cop fudged the circumstances that related to two older women’s lives being taken due to a car crash resulting from a NSW police pursuit.

“We have recommendations from the coroner in front of the NSW police right now, saying we need to change the rules of police chases,” the Greens justice spokesperson continued. “The commissioner has refused those recommendations – recommendations that were made to save lives from unnecessary deaths.”

The NSW Police Safe Driving Response and Operations Guideline, or its safe driving policy, was first slated for an overhaul after a 2008 NSW Ombudsman review. However, the NSW police has since refused to release the updated policy, which has been altered again over the 2020s. Although a 2024 NSW Police Force Safe Driving Public Policy Statement has been released.

Clear issues over the years in respect to the NSW police driving policy involve a lack of limits as to when to engage in police pursuit, and it is vague about safety management, whereas in other states where all this is clearer less pursuit incidents occur. So, NSW reforms over recent years have been ineffective, while police have continually rejected implementing coronial recommendations.

“To preserve public trust in the police and provide transparency to the grieving family and friends, the NSW Police Force should promptly clarify when they ended the pursuit,” said Redfern Legal Centre assistant principal solicitor Samantha Lee. “RLC has long called on NSW police to release its safe driving policy to the public,”

“NSW state coroners have made numerous recommendations about safe driving in the context of police pursuits, but we still don’t know if NSW police have acted on these recommendations,” she added.

Police pursuit recommendations disregarded

The findings of the Inquest into the death of Harri Tapani Jokinen were released in May last year. The death of Jokinen was caused when Marc Jessop crashed his car into the now deceased man’s vehicle. The case was significant, as a police pursuit had been engaged and then terminated, but officers then engaged in a second chase of the vehicle, which turned deadly.

Jessop had been driving his vehicle across Ngarigo land along the Monaro Highway, driving away from the NSW town of Cooma on 30 December 2021. Later found to have been heavily drunk, Jessop was understood to be reaching speeds of up to 180 kilometres per hour in a 100-kilometre speed limit zone. The first part of this pursuit was subsequently terminated for safety reasons.

However, as Jessop continued on, NSW police officers then considered setting up a tyre deflation device further down the road and reengaging the pursuit in order to have the driver move over the device to deflate his tyres and end the chasse. This measure was approved by senior officers, but the message to only engage in a short pursuit was lost in the divulging.

So, NSW police officers began a second pursuit of Jessop about 3 kilometres away from where the tyre deflation device was set up. This resulted in an ongoing police pursuit that ended up on a dead-end road, and when Jessop then careened down the wrong side of the road to escape and officers continued on with the chase, this led to the fatal collision with Jokinen.

Coroner Hosking went on to recommend that NSW police pursuits only occur when it is understood there is a serious risk to the health and safety of a person, prior to the pursuit beginning, and that the policy make clear this is the threshold, and a supervisor must ask a driver engaged in pursuit what the risk is. There should be training in respect of this, and records of reasons for pursuits kept.

However, in its 25 November 2025 response to these recommendations, the NSW police has simply “noted” them, which means they won’t be implemented. The issue identified in respect of implementing this pursuit threshold, according to state law enforcement, is that it will not result in a police pursuit on all occasions when there should be one, as the limit would prevent this.

Death tolls spiking  

In light of the most recent double fatality police pursuit incident, commentators are now raising the potential that these recommendations could have prevented these deaths. It has also been suggested to Sydney Criminal Lawyers that the fatalities relating to police pursuits over the financial year 2025-26 have likely already exceeded other death tolls of recent years.

The last NSW police annual report for 2024-25 outlines that 5,029 police pursuits had been engaged by police in NSW over those 12 months. The police terminated 2,727 of these car chases, while 468 ended in a collision. There were three fatalities related to police pursuits over the 12 month period, and there were further 36 injuries that occurred in relation to pursuits.

The total amount of NSW police pursuits that officers have engaged in have been consistently rising over the last 10 years, despite the growing focus on the NSW Police Safe Driving Policy. The number of police pursuits that transpired over 2015-16 was 2,195, compared with the last financial year’s 5,029 chases, which marks a 129 percent increase over the past decade.