Lamara Bell, who lay undiscovered while seriously injured next to her dead boyfriend in their car for three days after Police Scotland failed to respond to a report of a motorway crash, has died.

Bell’s brother posted on Facebook early on Sunday morning that his sister, who had been placed in a medically induced coma after suffering a head injury, broken bones and kidney damage as a result of dehydration, had died at the Queen Elizabeth University hospital in Glasgow.

Bell, 25, who has two young children, and her partner John Yuill, 28, had been reported missing by friends after they were last seen in the early hours of Sunday 5 July. The couple, both from the Falkirk area, left the south shore of Loch Earn, Stirlingshire, after a weekend camping trip.

It has since emerged that a call was made to police later on the morning of the crash reporting that the couple’s blue Renault Clio had left the road on the M9 southbound near junction nine at Bannockburn. The report was not entered into police systems, a failure that was immediately referred to Scotland’s police investigations and review commissioner (PIRC), which has already begun its investigation.

An urgent review of all police call handling in Scotland has been launched, the Scottish government’s justice secretary Michael Matheson said on Sunday. He formally directed Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) to undertake a “thorough and speedy” review of all police call handling in Scotland, to report to ministers.

On Wednesday, more than three days after the crash, police were called to a field beside the motorway after another report that a car had left the road.

It is believed that Yuill, the co-owner of a caravan recycling business near Stirling and father of two young sons, did not survive the impact of the crash. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a series of emotional posts, Bell’s brother described his sister’s deteriorating condition. After surgery on Friday to deal with a buildup of fluid around her brain and further scans yesterday, the family were told that “the front of her brain is basically shutting down”.

“She is fighting it until the end,” wrote Bell. “[It] is hard to believe she could get worse … you can start down at her pinky toe and work your way up to her head and you will find a cut, bruise, graze or broken bone on every part of her body … She has been giving it her all for a week now and the first three days she had no medical care whatsoever. It was a miracle she was still alive when she was found on Wednesday.”

On Saturday, he reported that she was receiving treatment for a head wound that had become infected: “She had difficulties with her breathing through the night but it’s OK … Can’t see her coming off the ventilator for another while … She has been taken off the ward and put into a room because her wound on the back of her head is badly infected, but she is getting antibiotics.”

Bell said he had chosen to make his posts public so the media and the police could read what his family were going through: “I want them to see how a huge error by a senior officer has absolutely devastated us. It feels like we have had our hearts ripped out; any time I see her my heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach and it’s not getting easier.”

He also thanked the public for their support. “It’s not just been local support, it’s been over the full UK … I actually can’t say thanks enough for that and when Lamara wakes up and is able to read the love, I know this will make her smile so much.”

On Friday, the head of Police Scotland, Chief Constable Sir Stephen House, admitted that the police had “failed both families” and said he could understand the level of concern being raised about the catastrophic error.

In a statement, House said: “I want to apologise to the families of John Yuill and Lamara Bell and to the people of Scotland for this individual failure in our service. Everyone in Police Scotland feels this most profoundly.”

He said the mistakes made in not responding to the initial call arose because the information received was not entered on to police systems.

“We know that just prior to 11.30am on Sunday 5 July, a member of the public contacted Police Scotland via the 101 system to report that they could see a vehicle down an embankment near the M9 slip road at Bannockburn.



“All callers to 101 receive an electronic options menu. This call was answered within six seconds following that message by an experienced officer and the relevant details were given by the caller.



“For reasons yet to be established this call was not entered on to our police systems and not actioned out to operational teams in the Stirling area to respond and trace the vehicle.”

Why did police not respond to motorway crash call, asks MSP – video Guardian

However, serious doubts have been raised about whether the failure is limited to one individual error or was the result of far deeper and more systemic problems within Police Scotland, which was centralised into a single force in 2013 and has since seen severe cuts in control room staff.

Scottish Labour’s justice spokeswoman, Elaine Murray, said Bell’s death reinforced the need for an inquiry that looks “not just at what went wrong in this specific case, but also assess wider issues like the impact of cuts to services on the ability of the police do their job properly”.

Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, was contacted a month ago by a police officer who detailed a catalogue of failings in Police Scotland’s handling of emergency calls.

In the email, which Rennie shared with the Sunday Times, the whistleblower wrote: “It saddens me that Police Scotland is about the implode, such is the level of crisis it is in. The morale is at its lowest and nobody with the organisation is tackling the problems.”

Rennie has already written to Matheson calling for a wider and independent inquiry to investigate the impact of police control room closures, workload pressure, reports of a targets culture and low staff morale.

Questions about the independence of PIRC, and police accountability more broadly, were also raised after the death in custody of Sierra Leonean man Sheku Bayoh in May.



Bayoh, a gas engineer and father of two, died of suspected asphyxia after he was detained by up to nine officers who were responding to reports he had brandished a knife and attacked cars in Kirkcaldy, Fife. Bayoh’s family said police gave them five different accounts of what had happened before they were eventually told late on Sunday afternoon how he died.

But Police Scotland commanders issued guidelines in March with the agreement of the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution authority, which amended the standard rules for inquiries into police conduct by PIRC.

The new rules effectively neuter PIRC’s investigative powers, by suspending the PIRC’s powers to require police to give formal interviews and hand over notebooks if they could face a criminal case or if its inquiry is ordered by the lord advocate, Scotland’s chief prosecutor.