Coroner says car company and government agency had failed to react fully to electrical fault that caused fatal crash

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A coroner has criticised BMW and the government’s driving agency for failing to take sufficient action over electrical faults in the German manufacturer’s cars before they caused the death of a Gurkha veteran.

Narayan Gurung, 66, of Aldershot, died after driving his Ford Fiesta into a tree on a dark road in Hampshire on Christmas Day 2016 to avoid a car that had cut out because of a complete power failure, Woking coroner’s court heard on Friday.

The Surrey assistant coroner, Anna Loxton, criticised the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) for failing to press BMW to recall as many as 370,000 cars in the UK despite envisioning the “exact circumstances” of the former soldier’s death 10 months earlier.

She will issue a written prevention of further deaths notice to the transport secretary, Chris Grayling, and the DVSA’s chief executive, Gareth Llewellyn, over her “serious concerns”.

Loxton said she agreed that BMW had been negligent in its actions and the DVSA indolent, but that she was unable to conclude Gurung had been unlawfully killed because there was insufficient evidence of corporate manslaughter.

Instead she recorded a narrative conclusion criticising the car manufacturer, its UK importer and DVSA for recognising the risk of a power failure on an unlit road during a meeting on 26 February 2016.

“Despite recognising this risk, the DVSA failed to call for, and BMW AG and BMW UK failed to initiate, a recall until after Mr Gurung’s death,” she said.

She criticised the DVSA for having no protocol for investigating safety-related defects quickly or guidance to interpret its own codes of practice over safety defects, and for lacking critical analysis of the defect.

She said the agency had been aware of a fault since October 2014 when it started to receive an unusually high volume of complaints from drivers, but it did not make a “fundamental shift” until after Gurung’s death.

The DVSA failed to recognise it as a safety defect and accepted BMW’s case that drivers would get a prior warning before a complete power failure and even closed down its investigations.

Gurung, a father of three who served with exemplary conduct in the British Army regiment for nearly 20 years, was driving with his wife to the Royal Surrey County hospital, where they both worked as housekeepers, when the incident took place.

A colleague’s BMW had stalled on the Hogs Back road ahead after suffering a “total electrical failure”. He tried to put his hazard lights on, but they failed.

Gurung was unable to see the vehicle until the last moment, when he swerved and hit a tree. He was pronounced dead at the scene as a result of multiple traumatic injuries, the coroner concluded. His wife was seriously injured.

Loxton said the BMW’s driver had no reason to expect a total power failure while driving.

The Gurung family solicitor, Emma Potter, said the case raised critical questions about vehicle safety in the UK and hit out at BMW for failing to recall the cars sooner.

“This delay ultimately contributed to Mr Gurung’s death,” she said.

BMW said it would reflect on the coroner’s criticisms. “Safety is of paramount importance to BMW. Nothing comes before this,” it said.

“Whilst BMW considers that it has followed all the processes required by the relevant regulations, we recognise the need for the automotive industry to review relevant processes and procedures.”

The company widened its recall of vehicles at risk of electrical faults last month to include 312,000 UK cars, including BMW 1 Series, 3 Series, Z4 and X1 petrol and diesel made between March 2007 and August 2011.