Police officers are being investigated for dangerous driving over Streatham terror attack

Two police officers who were ‘bravely’ responding to the Streatham terror attack are under investigation for alleged dangerous driving and gross misconduct.

The pair were travelling in convoy to the scene in south London on February 2 after extremist Sudesh Amman, wearing a fake suicide vest, stabbed two bystanders. 

One of the officers, who was driving an unmarked police car, was involved in a crash with two other vehicles while on his way to the attack, resulting in two injuries.

The other officer was driving a marked armed response vehicle and was not involved in the crash, instead carrying on to the scene of the attack.

Immediately after the incident, Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid tribute to the ‘speed and bravery of the police who responded and confronted the attacker’.

However the Independent Office for Police Conduct said it would now conduct an independent investigation into the actions of the two officers. 

The Police Federation described the move as ‘astonishing’, adding that the two officers had been left ‘dumbstruck’ by the investigation.

Chairman Ken Marsh said: ‘The public will be appalled when they hear that brave police officers responding to a terrorist attack can be treated in such a manner.

‘What kind of message does this send? These officers and their colleagues put their lives on the line that day to protect the public.

‘Now potentially their careers are on the line. It’s absurd. A complete joke.

‘Our colleagues did not know what danger they were travelling towards as the information emerged in real time about stabbings and threats of a suicide vest and explosives.

‘Yet without hesitation they drove towards that danger. Because that’s what police officers do.

‘And yet now their careers are at risk as the hindsight brigade decide to justify their existence.

These people need to understand the split-second and dynamic decisions police officers have to take.’

Amman, 20, was wearing a hoax suicide vest when he was shot dead by armed cops after he stabbed two people in broad daylight on Streatham High Road.

Moments earlier he had stole a kitchen knife with an 8-inch blade from a discount hardware store.

He was subsequently shot by surveillance officers, who were monitoring him, outside a Boots store.

A spokesman for watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct said: ‘We are conducting an independent investigation into a road traffic incident involving a Metropolitan Police car which collided with two vehicles while responding to the terror attack in Streatham on Sunday February 2. Two people received injuries.

‘On Friday February 28 we served notices of investigation for dangerous driving and gross misconduct on the officer driving the vehicle involved in the collision and on the driver of a marked police vehicle which was in close proximity to the unmarked vehicle but not involved in the collision.’