Police officer who followed holiday couple before they were found dead in ditch speaks out

Ellie Marsden and Ryan Duffy were found dead at the side of a Cumbrian road after going away for the night, an inquest into their deaths heard

A police officer stopped following a van 170 yards from the spot it was found crashed hours later with a young couple dead inside, an inquest has heard.

Ellie Marsden, 20, and 24-year-old Ryan Duffy, both from Wigan, were tragically discovered inside a Citroen Berlingo which had left a minor Cumbrian road in darkness and collided with a tree.

An inquest is being held in Carlisle to probe events leading up to the deaths in the early hours of September 5 2021.

A jury has heard Ellie, of Golborne, and Ryan, of Ashton-in-Makerfield, left a pub in Appleby-in-Westmorland, where they had earlier booked into a town hotel for the night, at around 12.30am.

They got into the van, drove off and were followed by PC Craig Stevenson, a response officer on mobile patrol in the town centre that night.

He decided to monitor the van’s movements, the court heard. When it went the wrong way down a one-way street, the officer made the decision to stop it.

Giving evidence for a third day yesterday (March 13), PC Stevenson said: “My intention was to get them pulled over, have a word with them, hopefully educate them and deal with what came from there.”

He did not get close enough to take down a registration number, nor determine the make of the van. The officer added that he did not feel it was safe or appropriate to illuminate blue lights.

Data showed PC Stevenson repeatedly drove above the speed limit both within Appleby and on rural roads as he attempted to keep the van in sight. The officer was “worried”, he said, that the van driver might be aware of his presence.

“There were times when he could have been aware. I was not certain at the time,” he told jurors.

PC Stevenson, trained to follow and stop vehicles but not pursue them, denied suggestions by solicitor Christian Weaver, for Ryan’s family, that the way he was following the van amounted to a “spontaneous pursuit”, as defined in official police policy.

It was “obvious”, said the officer, that when the van turned off the B6260, on to narrow Long Rigg lane, the driver had seen him. “It just didn’t seem conceivable it was going anywhere else than trying to get away from me,” he said.

PC Stevenson also drove on to Long Rigg, deciding to stop and report the incident to force control, before turning around and heading back to Appleby. Jurors heard he stopped just 170 yards from where the van was found crashed at around 7.30am.

Asked whether he was still looking for the van when he returned to Appleby, the officer responded: “No.” The court has previously heard how the officer returned to Appleby and later pulled over a similar van in the town centre which proved not to be the Citroen he had originally spotted.

PC Stevenson went on to make a number of formal statements in which he gave details about a journey behind the van which lasted around four minutes. But only while giving evidence during the inquest did he mention that he had tailed Mr Duffy’s van on to Long Rigg.

Lawyer Andrew Bridgman, for Ellie’s family, asked: “Why are we hearing for the first time that you followed Ryan up Long Rigg?”

The officer said when providing a first statement, hours after the incident, he was conscious not to give the wrong names of roads with which he was not familiar. He conceded a second statement was “short in detail” but he repeatedly insisted he was not trying to mislead, and that he provided what details he could to assist the investigation.

Mr Bridgman suggested of the officer not mentioning that he followed the van on to Long Rigg until the inquest: “You have deliberately left this out, haven’t you, in the hope that vagueness will exculpate you.”

The officer replied: “No.”

The constable told jurors: “On that night, I believed I was acting within my training and was doing what was justifiable and proportionate in the circumstances.”

The inquest previously heard how at around 7.40am on the September morning, a married couple travelling along the narrow single carriageway C3057 road — around three miles south-east of the village of Kings Meaburn — came across a crashed van. Inside were the bodies of Ellie and Ryan.

“The van was straight off the road and had crashed into a big tree,” stated witness Bill Offord, who had been travelling with his wife.

There were skid marks on the road and extensive damage to the Berlingo.

“You will have to consider the movements and the observations of the police officer in Appleby town centre at the time Ellie and Ryan left the pub and got into the Berlingo van,” the coroner has told jurors.

“You will consider the corresponding movements and the speed of the police officer when he was following the van. You will have to consider whether the police officer was involved in pursuing the Duffy van. You will have to consider the officer’s decision to stop following that van.”

The inquest continues.