Veal convoy PC denies telling driver not to stop PC who escorted veal convoy denies negligence

A policeman who was escorting the lorry that crushed the animal rights campaigner Jill Phipps under its wheels yesterday denied telling its driver to keep moving at all costs.

On the third day of the inquest into the death of the 31-year-old mother, Michael Mansfield QC, for the Phipps family, put it to the traffic policeman who led the lorry convoy that he had instructed the driver not to stop moving.

PC Steven Arnold, who was driving a police van in front of the vehicle on the way to Coventry airport, denied he told the driver to leave it to officers to cope with protesters who tried to throw themselves in front of the truck. But he told the jury that before the convoy moved off he had not briefed the driver to stop if he felt there was any danger to pedestrians.

PC Arnold said he only found out that Ms Phipps had gone under the lorry when another officer told him. He said: "I left the vehicle and an officer said there had been an accident. I saw a young lady apparently under the front nearside wheel of the cattle lorry."

Mr Mansfield suggested that the failure of the officer to radio back information about protesters on the road and his lack of advice to the driver to stop was "extremely negligent".

He said: "You were in fact saying to him don't stop, and once you got moving, you didn't. You weren't intending to stop." He asked the officer: "Did you tell him there would be a few stragglers running about but don't you bother with them, don't pay any heed to them - we will deal with them?"

The officer replied: "I don't think I said anything like that." He added he felt a van full of officers behind the truck had the responsibility to deal with demonstrators. He would not accept that his failure to halt the convoy was "seriously negligent driving and escorting".

Pictures from a police video show PC Arnold's van continued moving down the road after the truck crushed Ms Phipps and the officer admitted he was unaware of what had happened until he heard screams.

It was earlier revealed that a police document instructing drivers to stop if they were in doubt of the safety of any pedestrians was not produced until the day after the tragedy.

Police admitted they had drafted the instructions partly in response to what had happened to Ms Phipps. Chief Inspector Jonathan Bond said the instructions were only drafted after the accident because the tactics of the protesters were changing on a day-to-day basis.

Mr Mansfield remarked: "You don't wait until the horse has bolted before you close the gate." Ch Insp Bond replied: "It takes nothing away from the driver to observe the basic rules of the highway code."

The inquest continues.