Fake police officer warning as man tries to get woman to pull over on major motorway

A fake policeman tried to pull over a female driver (stock image) (Image: Getty)

A motorist who was left traumatised after being ordered to stop on a motorway by a man posing as a police officer, has been told there will be no criminal investigation.

The woman, who is using the pseudonym Lisa, says the man waved what looked like a police warrant card, drove close to her at speed in an unmarked car and ordered her to pull over on the M1 in Leicestershire.

She did not stop, fearing a repeat of the Sarah Everard case. Police officer Wayne Couzens used his police warrant card to falsely arrest Everard in 2021. He then raped and murdered her.

Lisa reported the man and gave his car registration to the police. It has now emerged he was not an officer, but he had worked for the police. Lisa describes him as "a fake policeman who wanted to do me harm".

She says in March 2023, she was driving alone on the M1 in Leicestershire. She admits she was speeding, doing about 80mph.

The incident happened on the M1 near Leicestershire (Image: Getty)

A lone male driver in an unmarked car crossed in front of her and went further ahead in the outside lane. As she came up behind him, also in the outside lane, he started waving a small black wallet out of the driver’s window, with an EIIR Royal-style symbol.

She thought it was a police warrant card and that she should pull over but felt uneasy. Lisa decided instead to move into the middle lane and stay there. The driver then slowed down in the outside lane so that he was driving parallel with her.

Lisa told BBC News: “He leaned over holding the steering wheel with one hand. He was driving alongside me all the time, shouting to pull over. He was really angry. I felt really stressed.

“He’s looking at me, not the road ahead and the window wasn’t open on my side, but it was on his passenger side and he’s waving the badge that I can clearly see is a black wallet with a police crest badge stuck on the outside.

"I immediately thought of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick. I was genuinely frightened. I was shaking. I was gripping the steering wheel.”

When she did not stop, the male driver suddenly slowed down and turned off the motorway. Lisa reported the man when she stopped, but by then she was in the Derbyshire force area.

She was told that he was a Northamptonshire police officer and it was initially treated as a complaint against a police officer rather than a crime and dealt with by Northamptonshire.

Over the following months, an investigation established that the man was not an officer but had worked in a civilian role with the force, working for a contractor, and had left the role months before the incident.

The complaint was passed to the Leicestershire force because Lisa was driving in its patch and it needed to be dealt with as a crime report. By this stage, all CCTV footage from the time had gone, and it took until August for Leicestershire to log it as an alleged crime of impersonating a police officer.

Due to the delays, this was almost at the end of the six-month limit for prosecuting such an offence. Leicestershire says it ran out of time and did not speak to the man. It has apologised to Lisa.

In a statement, it told BBC News: “Leicestershire police takes any report of impersonation of a police officer extremely seriously. However, on this occasion our response did fall below the expected standard.”

The Professional Standards Department of Northamptonshire Police also apologised to Lisa in February this year. It says: “Ultimately you have been given a poor service throughout the life of this investigation.

"You were left feeling distressed following a male’s actions and this should have been investigated as a crime from the outset.

“Unfortunately, early misinformation that this male was a police officer with Northamptonshire Police led to this becoming a complaint investigation as opposed to a criminal investigation.”

The force promised to speak to the man and, in a pre-arranged phone call, the man denied the allegations. Officers did not visit his home. This was twelve months after Lisa had reported him.

Northamptonshire Police has also revealed there was no record of the man returning his ID card when he stopped working for the contractor. It says that while the card would have had a Northamptonshire Police crest, it would have been stamped with the words “not a warrant card” and would not have been in a small black wallet. It added that practices for returning cards have now been tightened up.

Lisa is incredulous at the police response and a year on still gets upset about what happened: “I feel really let down. I still feel sick, panicky and scared. I would say he was a fake policeman who wanted to do me harm.”

She has shared her story with family and friends: “Many women have said that because he appeared to be a police officer, they would have stopped.” She dreads to think what could have happened if she had done.