Brunstrom at “last chance saloon”

Richard Brunstrom is at “the last chance saloon” over his use of photos of a headless biker, a North Wales Police Authority member has said.

Eifion Jones said the North Wales police chief had shown a “lack of respect” and breached protocol by showing the images at a media briefing without consulting the Authority.

He said Brunstrom should consider stepping down.
Brunstrom faced a grilling from the Authority on Tuesday over the media briefing, which was done without permission from the dead rider’s family.  

He was criticised for failing to prevent the dead rider’s identity emerging and warned he must follow the protocol by consulting the Authority on future sensitive media briefings.

The Authority said: “We are determined that lessons will be learned so that something like this does not happen again. This message has been delivered by the Police Authority to the chief constable in the strongest possible terms as management advice. This spells out the consequences of not adhering to the press protocol.”

Brunstrom said: “I was stupid. It was a stupid mistake.”

A solicitor acting for the dead rider’s family said: “The family find it hard to accept Mr Brunstrom’s belated apology and can only wonder at its sincerity.”

Paul Beck said the family had been caused “a great deal of unnecessary distress” which was “completely avoidable”.

“The family is disappointed that the Authority did not see fit to remove Mr Brunstrom from his post,” he said.

Brunstrom showed images of 40-year-old Mark Gibney’s fatal crash at a presentation in April to promote his force’s road safety efforts.

Gibney was killed in a collision with an oncoming vehicle in 2003. The father of three had been riding with no licence or insurance and had crossed onto wrong side of the road.

Get MCN, on sale November 28, to find out why Brunstrom has said he would do it again.