Partner's death sparks crash law change campaign

A woman whose partner died after being hit by a car has launched a petition to make reporting all road collisions a legal requirement.

Tommy Hunter died in Burton Road, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, in December 2023. The driver, Brandon Beesla, did not stop because he thought he had hit a badger.

Hunter's partner, Chloe Mefford, said it took 29 hours to find him and she is campaigning for drivers to report all crashes immediately, even if they think they have hit an animal.

In March 2025, Beesla admitted driving a vehicle, a Pontiac Firebird, which was in a condition likely to cause danger of injury on the night Hunter went missing. He was fined £2,000 and given a 12-month driving ban.

The petition also calls for a mandatory jail term when any accident is not immediately reported.

Mefford, from Swadlincote in Derbyshire, said: "The petition won't bring Tommy back unfortunately, but if it is successful then it stops another family having to go through what we've been through and are still going through."

Currently, drivers must report an accident involving animals such as dogs, horses, cattle, mules, sheep, pigs or goats.

But drivers who run over cats and wild animals including foxes, badgers and deer, do not have a legal obligation to report it.

Samantha Niblett, Labour MP for South Derbyshire, said if the petition was successful and this were to happen again, the driver would have to report the incident.

"As it stood, he drove away saying he felt he had hit a badger and didn't report it straight away, and it would make that a crime," she added.

Hunter's body was found by his friends in a hedge in Burton Road after he did not return home from a night out in December 2023.

An inquest in July heard Beesla called a friend in a distressed state on 10 December 2023, saying that he thought he had hit something.

The friend drove to the scene and helped Beesla look around before driving in convoy back to his house, despite suggesting he call the police.

She later called police on 11 December, having seen reports that Hunter, 27, had been found dead.

The inquest heard Hunter died from a head injury caused by the car's windscreen, which would have been "essentially unsurvivable".

Mefford has also again criticised Leicestershire Police, saying she felt officers did not conduct a thorough enough investigation.

Last year, she complained to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) due to her concerns the investigation into Hunter's death was not carried out properly.

The IOPC said it then launched a review into how Leicestershire Police handled a complaint related to the death of Hunter, which has now concluded.

An IOPC spokesperson said the organisation examined all the points of the review, but did not uphold any aspect of it.

They added: "Having looked at all the available information, we considered that Leicestershire Police had engaged with the complainant appropriately and all reasonable and proportionate inquiries had been carried out."

A Leicestershire Police spokesperson said forensic collision investigators undertook "a thorough assessment of the scene".

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