Tamzin Hall, 17, was struck by a vehicle after leaving a police car on the M5 motorway in Somerset after being arrested at a children’s home
Tamzin Hall, 17, was struck by a vehicle after leaving a police car on the M5 motorway in Somerset after being arrested at a children’s home
The mother of a girl who was struck by a vehicle and killed after she left a police car on a motorway says the untimely death of her daughter came after years of frustration and disappointment with authorities over the teenager’s care.
Tamzin Hall, 17, had been arrested and was being taken into custody when she left the police vehicle in which she was travelling on the M5 northbound between Taunton and Bridgwater in Somerset on 11 November 2024.
Tamzin, who had been diagnosed with autism and was living in a children’s home in Somerset at the time of her death, jumped over the motorway barrier and was struck by a car on the southbound carriageway between junctions 24 and 25.
Tamzin’s mother, Amy Hall, a former adult social care worker from Wellington, Somerset, says she has been left with many unanswered questions over her daughter’s death, criticising the police, social care and health trusts for how Tamzin had been cared for and treated since her early teens.
Hall was concerned by coverage of Tamzin’s death, which she believes has portrayed her daughter unfairly and inaccurately, arguing that Tamzin should always have been approached as a person with severe mental health difficulties rather than someone with social or behavioural problems.
“She needed specialised help, and that’s what she never got, and that’s what I was trying to fight all the way through, and no one would ever listen to me,” Hall says.
On the night she died, Tamzin was close to her 18th birthday and had become deeply distressed about the prospect of being legally treated as an adult, fearful she would be abandoned and moved to another home far from her family. She consumed alcohol and became increasingly agitated.
The police were called, something Hall says some of the staff at the children’s home were too quick to do. She would have benefited from a member of staff with the training and qualifications to deal with a young woman in distress, rather than reverting to calling the police, Hall says.
Two female police officers arrived and placed Tamzin in the police car to take her to Bridgwater police station.
Tamzin had been at the home for about a year at the time of her death. Hall says she was extremely vulnerable and wants to know what, if any, risk assessments were taken by the police before she was arrested.
Hall has only been able to get answers to what happened next through her conversations with Avon and Somerset police and the IOPC, which is investigating what happened. Both officers have been served with misconduct notices for a potential breach of their duties and responsibilities by the IOPC. An inquest before a jury is scheduled to take place in November.
