Warwickshire Police's capacity to manage cases has been questioned after "numerous failings" saw a drink driver escape criminal charges. 

Documents seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service show that a drunk man drove a van "at speed", mounting the pavement and then hitting two parked cars before abandoning the vehicle in Nuneaton in April 2024. 

The first parked car was spun into a house while the second was pushed into a garage, causing "significant damage".

The driver was later located and arrested. Results from a blood test that was taken four hours after the incident showed he was more than two thirds over the permitted alcohol level to drive and had drugs in his system.

However, those results took four months to come through via email, correspondence that was missed by the arresting officer while on leave before starting a new role on their return. 

The bulk of the criticism was levelled against the case progression officer who was found to have failed to chase the blood results, mention them in weekly meetings or raise the need for them to come forward with management.

The time limit to bring charges for such offences is six months with the case progression officer not only missing that deadline but requesting that a different officer, the one who had taken over the arresting officer's role, put together a charge file despite it already being too late.

No further action letters were issued "without rationale", leading to complaints and an investigation that ruled Warwickshire Police had provided a level of service that was "not acceptable". 

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The case progression officer was ordered to recommence training from scratch in December 2024.

Members of Warwickshire's Police & Crime Panel – the body of councillors and non-elected members who oversee the work of Police & Crime Commissioner Philip Seccombe – expressed concern over the matter last week. 

The panel holds Mr Seccombe to account for how he holds the force to account, although commissioners are precluded from getting involved in operational matters.

Cllr Keith Kondakor brought it up with Mr Seccombe's deputy Emma Daniell acknowledging: "The service on that particular occasion was not where you wanted it to be and there was some learning taken from that.

"There are discussions that the commissioner or I would then raise with the chief constable if there were a number of incidents of that nature, if it was wider."

Cllr Kondakor went on to ask whether that part of Warwickshire Police was "big enough or effective enough".

"You measure a lot of stuff at the end where you take calls, then there is the other end which fell down this time," he said.

Mr Seccombe said the distribution of resources was not his decision.

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"I give the chief constable some funding, about 98 per cent of everything we collect goes straight to him to spend," he replied.

"It is his operational decision as to the balance between officers on response, those in various specialist teams, investigators, it is his professional judgment. 

"At the moment he tells me we have the right balance within the financial envelope we have."

Ex-police officer Cllr Cliff Brown was in disbelief.

"As an old custody sergeant, if I had someone in front of me who was drunk, my machine told me he was drunk and the car was there through someone's wall, I can't see any reason why I'd be wondering what the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) might say," he said.

"From what Keith says this seems to be a matter of process, not investigation. I find it quite difficult to understand.

"It is a straightforward thing, the evidence is there from day one. Why does it fail to meet the time limit?"

Warwickshire Police has yet to respond to an approach for comment.

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