Police crash car 'had siren off'

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The officer involved has been suspended

A police patrol car which hit and killed a teenager in east London while answering a 999 call had not been sounding its siren, police said.

Khaleel Rehman, 16, from East Ham, was knocked off his bicycle on a pedestrian crossing in Ron Leighton Way, East Ham, in the early hours of Saturday.

Police said the car had its blue lights on when the crash happened.

The officer involved has been suspended from driving and an investigation is ongoing, the Metropolitan Police said.

A Met spokeswoman said: "The car was answering an emergency call."

I never heard no police car coming, never heard no sirens, only time I saw the police car was when it hit him Aamer Khan, Khaleel's cousin

The Met has passed on the details of the incident to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards is also investigating the incident.

A spokesman for the IPCC said: "The IPCC is carrying out an initial assessment of the circumstances to determine whether we need to be involved in further investigations."

Khaleel, a student of Langdon School in East Ham, died as a result of a severe fracture of the neck at the base of the skull, a post-mortem examination found.

The teenager, who was due to sit for his Maths GCSE on Monday and planned to go to a local college, died at the scene.

Tributes were left for Khaleel at the site of the crash

Khaleel's cousin, Aamer Khan, who was on a bike behind him at the time, said: "I never heard no police car coming, never heard no sirens, only time I saw the police car was when it hit him."

"If he [the officer] was going to an emergency and at the speed he was going he should have used a siren."

Hassan Salaam, the youth's friend, said: "He was one of the best mates I've ever had, he was like a brother to me and I miss him a lot."

Tributes were left for the youth at the site of the fatal crash.

On Sunday night a man in his 40s was knocked off his bike by another police patrol car in Catherine Wheel Road in Brentford, west London. He remains in hospital in a serious condition.

The police vehicle was answering an emergency call and the Met said the car had its blue lights on but did not sound its siren.

The IPCC has been forwarded the details of this incident as well.