KB-2024-001402 - [2025] EWHC 2492 (KB)

I have dealt with the evidence given by PC Morris above and will not repeat it. It was slightly surprising that he was 100% certain that Mr Bair said “Romaine” when asked given that he accepted the audio was unclear that there was a dispute, but I do not doubt that he believed that is what he heard at the time.

DC Dean was involved in the police investigation. He signed a witness statement prior to the trial. As a result of the evidence he gave, he gave a further witness statement following his oral evidence and a third witness statement was served prior to closing argument.

DC Dean conducted the interview of Mr Bair following his arrest. During the course of the interview he put it to Mr Bair that the call to report the Burned Passat stolen was made from a number ending in 056 which was attributed to Mr Bair via police checks. In his oral evidence he stated that they had details of the phone number from previous arrest records. He said that the IMEI came back to Mr Bair through a custody database. His explanation was that if a person is in custody and has a phone, then the IMEI number of the SIM is logged on the arrest database. The IMEI number is a number in the phone relating to the SIM. He said the phone call to the police reporting the Burned Passat linked Mr Bair to the investigation of the arson through the phone number.

His second statement corrects this and explains that the IMEI number identifies the handset not the phone number or sim. There is an ISMI (International Mobile Subscriber Identifier) which is a number used by mobile networks to identify each user and device which is stored on the sim.

It was the IMEI number that was consistent between the phone Mr Bair had with him when he was previously arrested and the phone used to report the Burned Passat was stolen. DC Dean agreed that when in the police interview, Mr Bair said the phone number used to call the Burned Passat as stolen had nothing to do with him, that was correct.

In his first witness statement DC Dean says that a DVLA letter to Mr Bair was found in the flat. When another police statement from the investigation was put to him which states that the letter was addressed to Conrad Bair, he agreed that the DVLA letter found was addressed to Conrad Bair not Roman. This concession was not correct and was corrected by his second witness statement which exhibited the letter.

DC Dean also gave evidence that he was satisfied, from the police investigations that “Roman Bair” does not exist in the context of the investigation and it was an alias used by Mr Bair. He says his impression, having listened to the call from the handset, was that the person reporting it had a script of what to say but was not ready for all the questions he was asked. He also gave evidence that police enquiries found that Mr Bair’s Lloyds bank account was used to pay for a Bolt taxi journey on 22 June at 1305 hours from Oma Autos to an address in Hackney. Police investigations also revealed the owner of Oma Autos brokered the deal of the Burned Passat.

DC Dean interviewed Mr Ali. He said he would have had a custody photograph of Mr Bair available but did not show it to him as he didn’t want to prejudice Mr Ali’s evidence. He didn’t want to put an image in Mr Ali’s mind, it would be against police procedure.

He said a search of the police national mobile phone register for the period 3 June 2021 and 3 July 2021 shows the handset was used at 1845 and 1932 hours on 20 June 2021 on the O2 network. The latter call was the call to report the Burned Passat stolen. It

DC Dean attached further documents from Bolt about Mr Bair’s taxi usage to his third witness statement. That included details of a taxi journey on Mr Bair’s account from West Ham Lane to the north end of the Old Kent Road arriving at 0017 on 20 June 2021. If that journey was taken by Mr Bair and is accurate, that would mean he was not at home the night of the accident. It would also show that, at that time, he was not driving the Burned Passat. As Mr Vincent said in closing argument, in order for Mr Bair to be the driver of the Burned Passat when it was seen on the ANPR at the Esso garage in Brownhill at 0041 hours, he would have to be on the south circular 24 minutes after being dropped off in the Old Kent Road, which is not impossible, but he says not likely. The Second Defendant did not object to the witness statements and exhibits being admitted, but given the timing of this evidence being produced, submitted it should not be taken as proving the truth of any of the Bolt journeys save for the one to Oma Autos dealt with in other evidence. Mr Bair had not been able to give evidence about it and the Second Defendant had not had any opportunity to investigate the information.

DC Dean’s evidence contained a number of mistakes which he had to correct. I formed the impression that when he first gave evidence he was not very clear on what an IMEI was and how it linked the two phones, but he gave the best explanation he could, which was that the phone number was linked to the handset. He was wrong about that but I find that he was genuine in his misunderstanding.

The other error he made in relation to the DVLA letter was an erroneous concession in cross examination. His original witness statement was correct. There was also an issue about the address of Oma Autos, which I have not set out. I do not find that to be of any significance. I have to treat his opinions formed in the police investigation with some caution given the errors, but ultimately his opinions are of little weight in my conclusions in any event.

DI Andrews (then DS Andrews) was the lead investigator into the collision. She states that in the investigation, they were unable to identify the driver or type of vehicle. ANPR footage local to the accident was viewed for the period before and after the collision with no results. Due to the damage to the Burned Passat the experts were unable to identify whether it had been involved in a collision. DI Andrews said that Mr Bair bore no resemblance to the three males Mr Khan described as having sold the Passat to. Police national computer checks showed the car was registered to Roman Bair. The telephone used to report the Burned Passat as stolen was not found in the police search of his flat.

She said that the Father’s day cards showed he had a son named Roman who was 6 at the date of the arrest.

Before giving her oral evidence, but having heard DC Dean’s evidence, DI Andrews produced a second witness statement stating that she understood there is a burned out bonnet in the Metropolitan Police storeroom at Catford traffic garage which does not have an exhibit number and she had been unable to locate a record of where it was found or why it was there. She stated that she was told that the fire damage looks similar to the fire damage seen on the Burned Passat but there is no other physical evidence to link the two.

She also gave further information about IMEI numbers consistent with DC Dean’s evidence in his second statement. Both telephone numbers and IMEI numbers can be used to track the location of a device. No IMEI or phone number location data for the handset linked its location to the collision or the arson. She gave evidence that the call from the handset to report the car stolen was made from the Thornton Heath, Croydon area.

In oral evidence she explained that she had not known about the missing bonnet before hearing evidence about it on the first day of trial. She mentioned it after court to a close friend who was a collision investigator and he told her there was a burnt out bonnet at Catford garage. He was not sure it if was from the Burned Passat or what type of vehicle it was from and it had no exhibit number. She did not know why it was there, for how long it had been there or whether it was from a Passat. When she said the fire damage looked similar, that was third hand information from a colleague.

She agreed that vehicle fires are common in London and that they can be caused to deliberately destroy evidence but not to conceal the identity of the vehicle, that is difficult because it is difficult to destroy all the VIN numbers.

She was unaware of the insurance policy taken out with Churchill Insurance in the name of Adam McLean and with Conrad Bair as a named driver at the time of the investigation. She agreed that was potentially important evidence to the police investigation. They couldn’t evidentially link the Burned Passat to the Collision Passat but if they had been able to link it, the policy with Conrad Bair as named driver would have potential importance.

In respect of the ANPR search that was undertaken, she confirmed she was not sure what the parameters were as she didn’t do the search. She agreed there were 6 sightings of the Burned Passat in the early hours in June 2021 prior to the accident, and 9 sightings in the Streatham area. In respect of the ANPR sightings shown on the map in the trial bundle, her understanding was that the nearest ANPR cameras to the accident location were all those identified on the map.

In respect of the CCTV of the accident, the police experts were unable to identify that the car was a VW estate, they were only able to identify a range of possible vehicles.

In respect of her comment in the witness statement that Mr Bair bore no resemblance to the males Mr Khan described, she said that the description given was too generic and not close enough to match to Mr Bair.

She summarised the investigation; they had reasonable grounds to suspect Mr Bair was the driver at the time of the collision but did not have evidence which would be able to prove that to the criminal standard.

I found DI Andrews oral evidence to be considered and careful. She was clear where she did not have knowledge, or where she was not personally involved in the search, and what was the extent of her knowledge. Her comments about the bonnet were an example that she wished the court to have all the possibly relevant evidence before it.