Hampshire Police apology over 'moronic' car crash tweet

The red Hyundai was in a collision on Redbridge Road in Southampton on Wednesday

Police have apologised after sending a tweet about a crashed car that was branded "inappropriate" and "moronic".

Hampshire Constabulary posted a photograph of a red car on its side, asking people to "retweet for a Hyundai i20 or FAV for a Vauxhall Corsa".

When Twitter users reacted critically, the force initially defended the tweet.

But a force spokeswoman has now said: "We do apologise if anyone was offended by this tweet. He [the officer] hadn't set the context properly."

She added: "We've had a chat with the officer."

The tweet was sent by @HantsPolRoads - the twitter account for Hampshire's roads policing unit.

'Incredibly inappropriate'

On Friday the account wrote: "Getting some negative replies to crashed car tweet.

"We were simply trying to show the impact of the crash. We didn't mean to offend.

"The driver was not injured in this incident. We were trying to highlight how much a car can be damaged in a crash."

No-one was seriously injured in the crash on Wednesday in Redbridge Road, Southampton.

By Sunday morning the original post had been retweeted 29 times and favourited 10 times, as well as receiving many negative replies.

Alan Bowden wrote in response: "This is incredibly inappropriate."

And Alex Oates said: "A game out of a crash? What's next? 'did the driver/cyclist/pedestrian live? RT yes, FAV no?'."

Wayne Herridge said he had reported the post to Twitter as an inappropriate tweet and twitter user ChrisC asked: "How can you get this so badly wrong? It's not a game."

A spokesman for Hampshire Police said two vehicles were involved in the collision and the driver of the red Hyundai had to be freed by the county's fire and rescue service.