Hertfordshire Police chief sorry for Luke Hobson death investigation

Luke Hobson suffered "unsurvivable" injuries after being hit on the head by a hockey stick, an inquest heard

A chief constable said he was "very sorry" about his force's investigation into the death of a 14-year-old boy hit in the head with a hockey stick.

Luke Hobson was injured before a training session in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, on 28 March 2019.

An inquest ruled the death at the unsupervised and unlit practice at Blueharts Hockey Club was an accident.

Charlie Hall said the evidence his Hertfordshire force presented to the inquest was "sub-standard".

The inquest heard initial police inquiries were unable to determine exactly how Luke's injuries occurred until the boy responsible came forward.

In a statement, the boy said he was "trying to hit the ball up into the air" when he struck Luke.

Luke's parents, Helen Moss and Peter Hobson, told the BBC last year they felt "very let down" by the investigation carried out by Hertfordshire Police.

Charlie Hall said his force should have done a "more thorough job" investigating Luke Hobson's death

Coroner Geoffrey Sullivan wrote to Mr Hall, Hertfordshire Police's chief constable since 2016, identifying a number of critical shortcomings in the investigation that needed to be addressed.

This included failure to gather CCTV from the club itself, no check of health and safety policies at the club and a lack of understanding around national best practice with regards to basic hockey safety.

Those concerns raised by the coroner and Luke's family led Hertfordshire Police to begin an inquiry.

Mr Hall said: "I am truly sorry for what has happened and we are changing the way we investigate the sudden deaths of young people with immediate effect."

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He said the force "perpetuated our mistakes by publishing a statement at the conclusion of Luke's inquest that, knowing what we do now, brushed over our short comings and no doubt would have caused his family huge distress".

"This is the last thing we would ever have wanted to do and we are very sorry," he added.

Mr Hall said the force had made a number of changes resulting from its inquiry, including assigning a detective inspector to all child death investigations and a senior officer reviewing reports to the coroner about the death of a child.

"I hope Luke's family and the coroner see our response as a sign of how seriously we have treated their concerns," he said.