The family of a 6-year-old who died when her mother drove the car they were in into an oncoming truck while she was drunk, say they were shocked police did not visit the woman after a lengthy *555 call about her erratic and dangerous driving an hour before the crash.
Police say they treated the *555 call as requiring urgent attendance, but did not respond to the complaint, saying the driver, Philippa Jane Manning (43), had turned into her home street, was "no longer on the road and therefore no longer presented a risk".
On that trip, Ms Manning and Rebecca were killed when the car collided with a truck-and-trailer unit on State Highway 1, near Milton, about 9.30pm.
"They [police] assumed [she had gone home], but one call would have saved our Becs," he said.
"These are just some of the hundreds of questions we still have, all around something that should not have happened."
At the time of the crash, Ms Manning, who was found to have a blood-alcohol level about four times the legal limit, was on her way to work at Clutha Health First in Balclutha, on a callout.
The *555 call was made as Ms Manning was driving home from an earlier callout.
He said his family was shocked to learn at an inquest hearing on Wednesday that 90 minutes before the crash, police received a 25-minute-long *555 call from a motorist driving behind Ms Manning, but had not sent an officer to check on her.
From Kaitangata to Waihola, the driver behind Ms Manning described her weaving, speeding up and slowing down. At one stage, she nearly drove into the path of a truck-and-trailer unit.
When the driver provided police with the car's registration plate number, they would have been able to see she had previous drink-driving convictions, Mr Coulter said.
He thought this would have made checking on her more of a priority.
As it was, the call was ended when she turned into the street where she lived, as it was assumed she was going home.
"This is the shock we are in. And what must it feel like for that person who makes a call about a car weaving all over the road? Imagine seeing that in the paper the next day, after you made that call, thinking help is on its way."
He wondered how many crashes happened after police failed to follow up on *555 calls.
"This is one drink-driving case out of thousands, and how many others could have been prevented?
"We're only lucky that no other innocent people were injured."
Police did a wonderful job, but they were obviously under-resourced if they could not make a courtesy call on a driver after a *555 call like that, he said.
Sergeant Martin Bull, of Balclutha, gave evidence at the inquest that all available South Otago staff were busy with other matters when the *555 call came in, and normal police procedure did not require such calls to be followed up.
Mosgiel police had been told to look out for Ms Manning's car in case it headed north.
A spokeswoman said last night police received more than 285,000 *555 calls every year, which were responded to on the basis of a priority assessment.
If a person's driving was considered dangerous or suggested they had consumed alcohol, the call was considered a priority and a unit dispatched.
This particular event was coded as a Priority 1 - the most urgent.
When Ms Manning turned off State Highway 1 at Waihola and returned home, the nearest police car was at least 20 minutes away, the spokeswoman said.
"Police did not attend as the driver was no longer on the road and therefore no longer presented a risk."
Police could not respond to other questions from the ODT before the coroner's written findings on the deaths were released, she said.
