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Police chief causes controversy with motorcycle safety stunt
One of Wales' top policemen has outraged bikers across Britain after releasing photographs of a decapitated motorcyclist without his family's knowledge.
North Wales Police chief constable Richard Brunstrom allowed for a picture of rider Mark Gibney's severed head and another of his headless body to be shown to journalists and road safety experts at a closed seminar last week.
However, news of this presentation was soon leaked, to the distress of Mr Gibney's family who had not been notified of it, although Chief Constable Brunstrom himself chose to direct his ire at the journalists who failed to respect the meeting's confidentiality.
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He announced on the force's website: "Police officers and others in the emergency services care so deeply about the reduction of road death precisely because we are daily called to face scenes such as those shown briefly and in confidence to this invited audience in closed session.
"I am heartened that the vast majority of those journalists present chose to honour this confidence. In the same breath, however, I repeat my dismay that at least one person present did not and may thereby have avoidably and unnecessarily added to the grief of relatives."
The force itself swiftly issued an apology to Mr Gibney's family for the further anguish that it had caused them, although they have rejected this act of contrition and are now pressing for Chief Constable Brunstrom to be sacked.
Having previously been dubbed 'the Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taleban' by the Sun newspaper, he has now been branded 'sick' by the Motor Cycle News magazine, whose own petition for his dismissal has received over 500 signatories at present.
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