A coroner has recommended police change the way they initiate pursuits as part of her findings into the death of a 22-year-old Indigenous man in northern New South Wales four years ago.
Name and photo used with family's permission.
Tyrone Adams died after being chased by police at Tweed Heads in 2018, when he crossed onto the wrong side of the M1 motorway, lost control of his car and crashed into a tree.
The pursuit lasted four-and-a-half minutes and was called off before the fatal crash.
Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame has recommended a threshold test that ensures police are satisfied that a serious risk to the health and safety of a person existed before the decision to intercept or stop a vehicle.
His mother Bonnie Thomas said police procedure needed to change to prevent future deaths.
"What happened to Ty wasn't fair — it's not fair to anybody who get pursued like that by police," she said.
"Something has to change, because they are supposed to be looking after us,"
Ms Thomas says she will keep lobbying and petitioning "until we see some real changes".
"I don't want to give up on it because they are going to do it to someone else," she said.
Outside the Coroners Court in Byron Bay today, Mr Adams's family members, including his grandmother, aunt and cousins, remembered him as fun-loving, affectionate and hard-working.
The court heard the Bundjalung man had spent time in a juvenile corrections centre before "settling down" in steady relationship and with a job he loved at a car wrecking yard in Murwillumbah.
Family said in the months before his death, he was hit hard by the death of his boss and the breakdown of his relationship.
The court heard that at the time of his death he was affected by methylamphetamine and was driving a hire car that had previously come to the attention of police.
Changes recommended
In delivering her findings, the coroner said she was satisfied the initial decision by police to intercept the car driven by Mr Adams was not sound.
But she accepted the "prevailing view" of police that a person failing to stop when directed was sufficient cause for pursuit.
"The issues regarding police pursuits – whether and in what circumstances police should pursue a car – are difficult ones with no easy or obvious answers," Magistrate Grahame said.
Her recommendations to the police commissioner include amendments to the safe driving policy to require the pursuit supervisor to ask the pursuing officer to identify, as soon a possible, the factors that demonstrate the threshold test for the pursuit had been met.
Magistrate Grahame recommended that mandatory training on the threshold test be given to all NSW Police officers.
She also recommended a video for all police undertaking driver training highlighting the adverse mental health impacts on police involved in a pursuit that results in death or serious injury.
In a statement, NSW Police said it notes and is currently reviewing the coroner's findings in relation to Mr Adams' death.
