Car thief Clayton Williams 'failed to stop' in previous crash

Clayton Williams admitted manslaughter and claimed he did not intend to hurt PC Phillips

The teenager who killed Merseyside PC Dave Phillips with a pick-up truck had failed to stop for police in a high-speed crash five months earlier, the BBC has learned.

Clayton Williams ignored the command to stop and crashed into a vehicle and lamppost in New Brighton on 3 May 2015.

PC Phillips was killed three weeks after Williams' subsequent release from a Young Offenders' Institution.

Williams was cleared of murder but has been found guilty of manslaughter.

Neighbours described Williams as a "troubled boy".

The BBC has learned authorities had tried to engage with the Williams family to try to prevent the 19-year-old's offending, but the attempt failed.

Two days after the non-fatal crash in May 2015, Williams appeared in court charged with aggravated vehicle taking and the court dealt with previous offences relating to a motorbike that he drove up Rake Lane with no insurance or licence in August 2014.

Court records from the time describe Williams as having "an appalling record" when he got into a stolen car with his friend and was "on bail for a very similar offence" before the fatal crash involving PC Phillips.

On 2 June 2015, the judge - Mr Recorder Edge - said: "I see that you have members of your family and your girlfriend who are in court.

"No doubt you have been a profound disappointment to them all for a long time."

He added: "I hope this has been the wakeup call that has been described. You could have killed yourself, you could have killed your mate and you could have killed those other people."

PC Phillips, 34, was struck in Birkenhead in October 2015 as he deployed a stinger device to stop the stolen Mitsubishi 4x4 driven by Williams. He sustained injuries that were "not survivable".

Williams said he had used cannabis since the age of six and was heavily under the influence of the class B drug when he crashed into the officer.

PC Dave Phillips with his wife Jen and daughters Abigail and Sophie

One person living near the Williams home in Seacombe, Wirral said he was a "a troubled boy."

"He was out of control. I'm not surprised something bad happened. I always thought he'd move on from petty crime," said the neighbour, who did not want to be identified.

For the earlier New Brighton crash, Williams was sentenced to 32 weeks in a Young Offenders' Institution at Liverpool Crown Court.

After his release, the neighbour asked where he had been. "He smirked and said 'inside'," they told the BBC. "He really wasn't bothered at all."

The aftermath of the crash in which Clayton Williams destroyed a lamppost

Other neighbours recall that police were "always" being called to the house.

One of the agencies working with the Williams family was Catch 22, an organisation known for intensive interventions with the hardest-to-reach families.

'Out of control'

The BBC understands Catch 22 was involved in trying to intervene with the Williams family (for a year until March 2014), but never directly supported him.

Julia Hassall, Director of Children's Services at Wirral Council, said the authority could not comment on its work with individual families.

Birkenhead MP Frank Field has called on the government to introduce measures to prevent offenders from "spiralling out of control".

He said the reoffending rate in 2013-14 for adult offenders released from custody after sentences of less than 12 months was "almost 60%".

Mr Field has written to Justice Secretary Michael Gove urging him to "run prisons in a manner that increases significantly the chances of prisoners making a go of their life once they are back in the outside world".