Recovered/Located UK - Cardiff - 3 Women & 2 Men Missing, leaving nightclub approx 2am, Newport, 4 March 2023

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dunkley said:
"off any of them, I thought they'd have been looking all day Saturday."

Quote taken from the article with the interview of the friend.

Answer to this .... there is NO reason the police would have been looking for them 'all day Saturday' because they hadn't been reported as missing to the police at that point. It wasn't until later on Saturday evening that three MFH reports were made to Gwent Police. Gwent covers Newport, so I am guessing this was the three girls.
The other report was made to South Wales Police on Sunday evening. SW covers Cardiff, so I am guessing this to be one of the two men. My gut says RJ.
Tracking phones and ANPR is NOT the first line of any MFH enquiry. Local enquiries, visiting known associates, and making phone calls is usually the first line of attack. Plus circulating the registration number of the car. But - would that actually have been known until the owner of the car was reported MFH? Information gained from the person reporting. There has been no suggestion that any of the girls owned it.
Someone must have been told they were going on to Porthcawl and Cardiff. Or how would that information be known. Again, I am guessing this may well have come from the sixth person that has been mentioned, but not named. I am very sure the police know exactly who it is, and will be getting as much information from that person as possible.
Ultimately, we are not investigating this tragedy, the police and IOPC ARE.
We should now allow them to get on with it.
As in many other cases - everything will be made public in due course. At the Inquests, or any possible future legal proceedings.

IMO
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I don’t think we’re stopping them doing any of their investigations. It’s great that these things are discussed and no harm is caused. The idea that only the authorities can look into the actions of authorities is Kafkaesque, with respect.
 
Bickles said:
For the families it was an agonising 48 hours though. They have said they tried to report their girls missing earlier on Saturday.
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According to the article I posted it says "According to Gwent Policet he first report of a missing person was taken at 7.34pm on Saturday 4th March with additional missing person reports made to Gwent Police at 7.43pm and 9.32pm the same day, and to South Wales Police at 5.37pm on Sunday 5th March." I assume the police would have call logs etc?
 
UK Girl said:
According to the article I posted it says "According to Gwent Policet he first report of a missing person was taken at 7.34pm on Saturday 4th March with additional missing person reports made to Gwent Police at 7.43pm and 9.32pm the same day, and to South Wales Police at 5.37pm on Sunday 5th March." I assume the police would have call logs etc?
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I'm not disputing what the police say!

However, it still stands that for 48 hours there were 5 people trapped inside the car. This is where the press headlines are coming from...
 
This article is confusing as he says he found the car and yet Sophies mum said it was a woman walking her dog who found it "
Ms Certowicz, 41, also says the police response wasn't good enough and has alleged that police on foot had searched the wooded spot where the white VW Tiguan was hidden from view for 48 hours.

She said: 'Policemen on foot had searched the area but didn't find anything.

'It was on a main road, next to a roundabout and opposite a garden centre. It doesn't make sense.

'People who didn't even know the girls were out searching that night and it was a woman with a dog that found the car."

www.dailymail.co.uk

Cardiff car crash: Man who found wreckage slams police

Matthew Pace, 45, and son Lewis, 26, were searching for the missing group of friends in Cardiff when they spotted tyre tracks across grass at a roundabout.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk
 
Certowicz said she drove past the site where the car was found three times in her desperate hunt, passing within 20 yards of it. It could not be seen from the road due to camber and trees

Unfortunately cars that go off the road at speed can absolutely vanish behind trees, hedges, down ditches etc, with very little indication on the road (or notable damage to the greenery on the side of the road) to indicate where it has happened.

It also seems like this was a spontaneous side- trip and not nessesarially a usual route home. Did the people reporting the girls missing even know they'd driven off with these guys?

I can see why there was these delays. It wasn't a group of five mates failing to complete a drive home. It was a trickle of reports of adults. Not all immediately connectable to each other, and possibly not even all reported to the same force area. Failing to make it home from a Friday night out - no indication of foul play, accident or suicidal intention etc. Possibly spontaneous trips with randos was not unusual behaviour for them. It would be a low risk rating. Risk ratings are based on the information available, they can't always be right sadly.

Establishing they were all together, were all missing, where they drove off to, whose car etc would have taken time. Mobile phone data isn't a laser pointer, especially in rural areas. The car was, it seems completely invisible from the road. In hindsight it's obvious, from the perspective of the police, these sorts of reports are made every weekend and 99% end up with hungover teenagers getting yelled at by their parents.

I imagine the risk rating went up on the Sunday morning when the second person was reported missing. Kicking into high as the day wore on with no contact and/or the realisation more people were missing. However they still had a massive search area to cover for a near invisible car, 5× people to follow lines of enquiry for and likely little idea where the group had come from or were going to.

Cold comfort for the families though. Horrible situation.
 
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NextSprint said:
Interesting, there have been five car crashes in that spot since 2017. Not sure how lethal those were as this site doesn't give detailed info.

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Five in six years. I am guessing from the location (junction at roundabout) the majority, if not all, of those would be damage-only, rear-end shunts.
IMO
 
squish said:
The police have abilities that ordinary civilians don't have. If they bothered to track their phones, for example, it would have led to a few hundred square yards where they could have been found, leading to a more intensive search in the target area.

The volunteers didn't find them because they have no such abilities. It's not fair to criticise them for not finding the group when unlike the police, they don't have the expertise, equipment or facilities to do so.

I think criticism of the police is warranted in this case because the mother of a survivor has already said they weren't interested. I don't think it's victim-friendly to be disputing her account.
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I do agree with you . I think the public should be able to ping their peoples phones. Like special permission contacts. Where you allow who can. Save tax payers lots of money and make people able to find their own ,when LE will not . Its a tool and it is useful and we should be able to use it
 
Soulmagent said:
I do agree with you . I think the public should be able to ping their peoples phones. Like special permission contacts. Where you allow who can. Save tax payers lots of money and make people able to find their own ,when LE will not . Its a tool and it is useful and we should be able to use it
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There are apps for that. No need to ping phones. GPS tracking is far far more accurate that cell tower triangulation anyway.
 
MsMiniSleuth said:
#STATEMENT | South Wales Police is continuing to investigate a fatal road traffic collision on the A48 in the St Mellons area of Cardiff.

Emergency services discovered a Volkswagen Tiguan vehicle at 12.15am on Monday 6th March after the police helicopter, police and fire officers were deployed to the scene.

The families of Rafel Jeanne, Darcy Ross and Eve Smith, who died in the collision, continue to be supported by specialist family liaison officers.

Two further people remain in critical condition at the University Hospital of Wales.

Following initial police investigations into the collision, we can confirm that:

- The last confirmed sighting of the five people was at 2am on Saturday 4th March in Pentwyn.
- The collision occurred during the early hours of Saturday 4th March, the exact time to be confirmed by the investigation, including CCTV and ANPR enquiries.
- The first missing person report was made to Gwent Police at 7.34pm on Saturday 4th March.
- Further missing person reports were made to Gwent Police at 7.43pm and 9.32pm on Saturday 4th March.
- A further missing person report was made to South Wales Police at 5.37pm on Sunday 5th March.
- At 11.50pm on Sunday 5th March the police helicopter was requested to search an area of Cardiff which resulted in a vehicle being located in a wooded area off the A48.
- Gwent Police officers, who were in the area conducting enquiries during Sunday evening, discovered a Volkswagen Tiguan vehicle at 12.15am on Monday 6th March.
- At this stage we believe only one vehicle to be involved.

Assistant Chief Constable Jason Davies of South Wales Police said: “Our thoughts continue to be with the families and all those affected by this tragic incident. Specialist officers are carrying out a detailed investigation to piece together what has happened. Family liaison officers are supporting the families involved at what must be a hugely difficult time for them.”

Full statement here: https://www.south-wales.police.uk/n...ent-from-south-wales-police-and-gwent-police/

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So based on that the police actually found them within about 30 hours of them being reported missing. So not as long as first suggested.
 
I was once told a story of a road accident.

A person called in that they thought they saw a car go over a roundabout and heard it crash into the trees. No real description no numberplate, happened behind them, dark rainy night.

So the police go out. The roundabout is one of those grassy hill types. There's tyre marks on it and a bunch of mucked up flower beds. No skid or break marks though. Someone has clearly driven over it, but no car.

So they check the grove of big mature trees on the other side. No car. The trees are too close together for one to pass through them and there's no indication of damage.

They're about to write it off as a drunk driver who limped their car home when one of their torches happens to pass over something shiney.

They look up, and there, wedged in the tree branches 2/3m above them is a black mini. Made almost completely invisible by wet leaves, rain and darkness.

As far as road accident investigators could make out later. Chap had had a massive heart attack at the wheel, slammed his foot on the accelerator and ramped the roundabout Dukes of Hazarded style. Little mini had positivity flown into a perfect mini-sized collection of branches and some structure just behind them.

Come morning the back end of the mini would have been obvious to any passing motorist. Would likely have been very embarrassing headline for the police. But who looks up in the rain? And who thinks to look up a tree for a car?

Anyway, point of this little story is, you would think something like a crashed car would be easy to find. That isn't always the case, even when you know exactly where it's supposed to be.
 
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NextSprint said:
Interesting, there have been five car crashes in that spot since 2017. Not sure how lethal those were as this site doesn't give detailed info.

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According to the key in the bottom left hand corner, yellow pins are "slight severity", red are severe and black are fatal.

Looks like it's all fairly minor incidents there - rear end shunts with a bit of whiplash, for instance.
 
Telltale said:
There are apps for that. No need to ping phones. GPS tracking is far far more accurate that cell tower triangulation anyway.
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This, things like Apple Family, Find my iPhone etc., are useless if a battery is dead. What the authorities can do is find from the service providers where the phones were when they left the network, which in cases like this (and thousands others) is the most important bit of information.
 
Ffion Actie, the sister of Rafel, told Sky News she feels "disappointed that maybe things weren't done sooner".

She said: "I heard the girls' mums had contacted [police] but it had taken several hours [to respond]

By that does that mean the guys families hadnt reported them missing? I know they was mentioned later but I think now that was because they was seen with the girls rather than because they had been reported missing. Cardiff car crash: Sister of victim 'disappointed' with police and says detectives 'should have acted straight away'
 
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