Motorists who fail roadside drug tests are being allowed to continue to drive for up to six months because of a backlog in testing confirmatory blood samples.
Some of those drivers have gone on to kill behind the wheel while their results are pending.
The backlog and delay have been described as “unacceptable” by the families of some of those who have died in accidents caused by drug-drivers on bail.
Mother-of-two Jane Hickson died at a junction just metres from her home in Chester when her car was hit by a motorist who had gone through a red light.
Image: Jane Hickson died after being hit by a motorist who was on bail for drug-driving
It was later revealed that the driver Paul Wright had been on bail for drug-driving at that time, having been arrested six months earlier after testing positive at the roadside.
Police were still waiting for the blood test results at the time of the accident in which Ms Hickson died.
“The fact is that those people are out there, driving under the influence of drugs as we’re sat here now. People are at risk, and I don’t think that’s acceptable,” her husband John told Sky News.
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“It’s hard to move on from something that was such a senseless way for Jane to die. I think it’s also completely avoidable. I think, as a society, we have to do something about it. They need to be off the roads as soon as possible.”
Image: Paul Wright. Pic: Cheshire Constabulary
Like many, Mr Hickson believes the system for dealing with drug-drivers has not kept pace with the way drink-drivers are caught. They are generally banned within days as the result of confirmatory breath tests at police stations.
This comes at a time when many police forces across the UK report they now are regularly arresting more people for drug-driving than drink-driving.
Experts point to the system used in France and Australia which tests saliva rather than blood and provides a confirmatory, evidential sample within days.
Ean Lewin, the founder of D.tec International, which provides roadside drug tests to police forces across the country, told Sky News: “Saliva is a perfectly acceptable solution, and it can be processed in the laboratory much quicker.
“If we could have an evidential confirmation within a week, we could maybe get them in court the week after, which is the same timescale as is acceptable at the moment for alcohol.”
In January, the minister for the future of roads, Lilian Greenwood, told the Commons she had heard concerns about the issue first-hand while on patrol with police.
Any action now would come too late for the family of Tim Burgess. He was killed in a collision in July which also left his partner with life-changing injuries.
The other driver, Joshua Eldred, was two-and-a-half times the cocaine limit and 16 times over the limit for a compound which shows recent cocaine usage.
Image: Joshua Eldred. Pic: Cheshire Constabulary
Eldred had been in another crash ten days earlier but had been bailed pending a blood test, meaning he was free to drive. That test later confirmed he’d been taking cocaine.
Mr Burgess’s sister Linzi Stewart has launched a campaign calling for a change in the law.
“I think people just think they can take drugs and get behind the wheel and get away with it because there isn’t an effective system in prosecuting and charging them. There isn’t enough deterrent.
“Road deaths have almost become normalised and there’s so much complacency in the UK around road deaths.”
The National Police Chiefs’ Council declined our request for an interview. Last year it called for new powers to allow officers to instantly disqualify drink or drug-drivers at the side of the road.
Image: Linzi Stewart is campaigning for a law change
On the backlog of blood tests for drug-drivers, it said: “The NPCC has been aware in the past of difficulties in the processing of drug-drive blood samples, with backlogs and delays up to six months in some cases.
“However, currently the position is much different with the majority of cases now being processed within six months.”
Months-long delays though, families say, are putting lives at risk.
“I don’t feel angry with the offender because I feel that, if he had been dealt with ten days previously, he hopefully would have learned his lesson,” said Ms Stewart.
“His family’s life has been destroyed, his life’s destroyed, our lives are destroyed. If it had been dealt with at the time, then we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We take road safety extremely seriously, and there are already strict penalties in place for those who are caught drug driving.
“Drug testing is a complex forensic process that must meet strict legal and scientific standards. We are working closely with policing partners to improve efficiency while ensuring the integrity of results that support prosecutions.
“Our roads are among the safest in the world, but we are committed to improving road safety and reducing the number of those killed and injured on our roads.”
A man has been charged with 64 offences in connection with an investigation into a Hull funeral directors, Humberside Police has said.
An investigation was launched into Legacy Independent Funeral Directors after officers received reports of concern for the care of the deceased in March 2024.
Following a 10-month investigation by Humberside Police, Robert Bush, 47, formerly of Kirk Ella, East Yorkshire, has been charged with 64 offences.
The force says the charges include 30 counts of prevention of a lawful and decent burial and 30 counts of fraud by false representation relating to the deceased recovered from the funeral premises.
Bush has also been charged with two counts of theft from charities and one count of fraudulent trading in relation to funeral plans – encompassing 172 victims – between 23 May 2012 and 6 March last year.
He also faces one count of fraud in relation to human ashes involving 50 victims between 1 August 2017 and March 2024.
The force said the charges related to 254 victims in total – comprising 252 people and two charities.
Police recovered 35 bodies during a raid on the funeral directors in March last year.
In April 2024, the force confirmed that it was impossible to identify any of the human ashes using DNA profiles.
Bush has been bailed with conditions and will appear at Hull Magistrates’ Court on 25 June.
In a statement, deputy chief constable Dave Marshall said the force had updated the families of 35 deceased with the development and has made initial contact with additional victims who may have been affected.
“My sincerest thanks go out to those affected for their patience and understanding,” he said.
“They have always been the priority and at the very heart of the entire investigation and this will remain, and we would please ask their privacy is continued to be respected.”
A 55-year-old woman arrested in July 2024 has today been released with no further action to be taken.
Heathrow Airport bosses had been warned of a potential substation failures less than a week before a major power outage closed the airport for a day, a committee of MPs has heard.
The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told MPs of the Transport Committee he raised issues about resilience on 15 March after cable and wiring took out lights on a runway.
A fire at an electricity substation in west London meant the power supply was disrupted to Europe’s largest airport for a day – causing travel chaos for around 200,000 passengers.
“I’d actually warned Heathrow of concerns that we had with regard to the substations and my concern was resilience”, Mr Wicking said.
“So the first occasion was to team Heathrow director on the 15th of the month of March. And then I also spoke to the chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before regarding this concern.
“And it was following a number of, a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft, of wire and cable around some of the power supply that on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time. That obviously made me concerned.”
Mr Wicking also said he believed Heathrow’s Terminal 5 could have been ready to receive repatriation flights by “late morning” on the day of the closure, and that “there was opportunity also to get flights out”.
However, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said keeping the airport open during last month’s power outage would have been “disastrous”.
There was a risk of having “literally tens of thousands of people stranded in the airport, where we have nowhere to put them”, Mr Woldbye said.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Image: Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Image: Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.