South Wales Police officer to face misconduct hearing over Ely crash

A police officer who was driving a van behind two teenagers who died in an e-bike crash in Cardiff has a case to answer for gross misconduct, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has found.

Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and 15-year-old Harvey Evans died after the bike they were riding crashed in the Ely area of the city in May 2023.

The IOPC investigation concluded the officer should face a hearing over “the accuracy of accounts he provided to colleagues” and potential “inconsistencies and evidential conflicts”.

South Wales Police said it had “fully cooperated” with the IOPC investigation and hoped the hearing outcome would “provide answers to the many questions” about this case.

IOPC investigators said there was no indication of contact between the teenagers and the police vehicle, which was about half a mile away from the bike.

But they concluded the officer also had a misconduct case to answer regarding his driving and the language he used in relation to the boys at the scene of the crash.

They said they believed a police disciplinary panel “could find that his driving at the time was outside his level of training and authority”, contrary to professional practice and the force’s policy, and that “there may be inconsistencies and evidential conflicts in the information given by the officer which potentially breach police standards of honesty and integrity”.