Officer admits pursuit of petrol thief who killed grandmother was breach of police rules

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A former highway patrol officer has told a coroner the pursuit of a speeding petrol thief, who then hit and killed an 86-year-old grandmother, may not have complied with police rules.

Betty Sloan was injured and later died in hospital after Ryan Tulloch lost control of a stolen Subaru Liberty and caused a four-car pile-up in Box Hill in June 2019.

Highway patrol officers may not have complied with rules governing when a pursuit can take place.Credit: Paul Rovere

Coroner David Ryan is probing whether the pursuit, which was called off just before the collision, complied with strict rules that govern the basis that officers can initiate dangerous pursuits with fleeing offenders, and what, if any, improvements can be made to the policy.

The Coroners Court on Wednesday heard Tulloch, then 23, fled a BP service station just after 11am at the corner of Canterbury Road and Station Street in Box Hill South, reversing dangerously into traffic before driving towards the city.

Leading senior constable Tibor Hernyak, who was in an unmarked highway patrol car, responded to a police radio call about Tulloch and spotted him in a damaged stolen car travelling in the opposite direction.

Hernyak turned the car around and began “urgent duty driving” after him.

Tulloch, who was on his third day of a self-described “drug binge”, was at times travelling between 80 and 90km/h in a 60km/h zone. He struck other vehicles and a telephone pole during his attempted escape, while highway patrol called in the police air wing for help.

At the intersection of Station Street and Riversdale Road, Tulloch turned right and crashed into the back of a civilian’s car. Police then stopped their pursuit.

Tulloch drove another 700 metres before slamming into a car driven by Ian Sloan, Betty Sloan’s husband.

Coroners Court counsel assisting Lindsay Spence suggested Victoria Police’s criteria to initiate a pursuit had not been met when the chase began.

“Do you agree that on the basis of the [radio brief] that there was no serious risk to the health or safety of a person in relation to the information that you had available to you at the time?” Spence asked Hernyak, who replied: “Yes.”

“If you agree with that, then, you would agree that the pursuit justification criteria was not met,” Spence said.

“Yes,” Hernyak said.

“And if the pursuit justification criteria was not met, a pursuit should not have been conducted,” Spence continued, to which Hernyak replied: “That’s correct, yes.”

The inquest brings into focus a complicated set of policies for police pursuing offenders on Melbourne’s streets and split-second decisions that are made by officers.

It was suggested that waiting for the air wing, instead of launching a road pursuit, would have been safer.Credit: Darrian Traynor

Hernyak told the court on Wednesday that the pursuit was necessary because he felt that members of the public were in danger as a result of Tulloch’s driving, and that his main consideration when driving quickly was his and the public’s safety.

Spence suggested that there were ways to more safely apprehend Tulloch, such as waiting for police’s air wing or investigating Tulloch later because they knew his identity.

Spence also suggested that Hernyak’s use of lights and sirens may have contributed to Tulloch’s decision to drive more dangerously to avoid arrest.

After Hernyak’s evidence, Ryan told him: “I’m aware that we’re engaging in this process with the benefit of hindsight, poring over things that happened and unfolded very quickly without the benefit of detailed reflection.”

The court heard that there was some confusion about whether Highway Patrol should be simply monitoring Tulloch, so as to avoid escalating the situation, or to actively intercept him and bring him to a stop.

The air wing is a safer way to pursue driving offenders because people fleeing police are generally less aware of its presence and less likely to take risks.

Tulloch is serving an 11-year sentence for culpable driving, negligently causing serious injury, conduct endangering persons, and car theft after being sentenced by Justice Richard Niall in the Supreme Court in June last year.

Niall told him that “given the way you were driving, an accident was virtually inevitable and the risk of a catastrophic accident very high”.

Tulloch told a psychiatrist, Dr Matthew Barth, he had been on a three-day “drug binge”, and that he was “falling asleep” but was “trying to fight it”.

Spence said Ryan’s task was not to allocate blame for the death of Sloan but instead to decide whether police’s decision to pursue him was consistent with pursuit policy, and make contributions to whether that policy should be improved.

Police pursuit policy has been criticised by several coroners investigating fatal crashes in chases where the suspects were wanted for minor offences.

Sloan’s family declined to be part of the inquest, and was not represented. During Tulloch’s sentencing hearing, Betty and Ian Sloan’s three children – Sue, Michael and Jennifer Sloan – and granddaughter, Elise Sloan, told the court they keenly felt the loss of their mother and grandmother.

”Although in advanced years, the death of Mrs Sloan came as a great shock and the traumatic nature of her injuries has compounded their sense of grief,” Niall wrote in his sentencing remarks last year.

The inquest continues.

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