Recovered/Located UK - Cardiff - 3 Women & 2 Men Missing, leaving nightclub approx 2am, Newport, 4 March 2023

[Nikynoo]

Yes I thought the same. There's a few trees about but nothing like what you'd call dense undergrowth, and surely there would be some tyre marks in the grass where they left the road?

Looks like there is housing directly behind also.

 

[Normal Norm]

This is the roundabout in question
A48 · United Kingdom

If they had decided to take the girls back to Newport from Llanederyrn then the most logical route would be the A48(M) (screenshotted). The place they were found was the roundabout on the right hand side of the screenshot; you can see from the map that there's a sliproad off the A48(M) that offers easy access to it

Minor point, @rightsaidfred, but I'm not sure your link shows the correct roundabout (although your screenshot certainly shows the correct one). Perhaps it is some quirk in Google Maps that is causing this.

To my mind, this is the roundabout where the accident happened. I'll happily be corrected if I am wrong.

Regardless, the roundabout is a busy one. I can only think that the car left the carriageway un-noticed and was then immediately hidden from view by the dense foliage. As has been pointed out, it isn't the first time that this is happened.

 

[3point5]

What a tragic outcome. I wonder if the police had tracked the phones quicker, the outcome might have been better.

I guarantee this is the first thing they tried.

Very sad update this morning. We can only hope the two survivors make a full recovery.

 

[wizardizzo76]

Minor point, @rightsaidfred, but I'm not sure your link shows the correct roundabout (although your screenshot certainly shows the correct one). Perhaps it is some quirk in Google Maps that is causing this.

To my mind, this is the roundabout where the accident happened. I'll happily be corrected if I am wrong.

Regardless, the roundabout is a busy one. I can only think that the car left the carriageway un-noticed and was then immediately hidden from view by the dense foliage. As has been pointed out, it isn't the first time that this is happened.

On Twitter, the garden centre blooms is mentioned

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Wow this is unbelievable, Eve's sister died in a car crash in 2015.

Eve mentions her on her FB in case anyone wonders if it's the same girl.

'My daughter died five years ago but the men responsible are free'

Emma Borg's 19-year-old daughter Xana Doyle died in a car crash when the driver was high on drugs

www.walesonline.co.uk

Oh my word, talk about history repeating itself. That poor family.

I’m feeling angry about this. I’m not convinced the police took it seriously from the off. And if Shane was driving when he shouldn’t be? No words. Getting awful flashbacks to an accident my friends were in many years ago: two dead, one paralysed, driver had some scrapes and bruises.

 

[rightsaidfred]

Minor point, @rightsaidfred, but I'm not sure your link shows the correct roundabout (although your screenshot certainly shows the correct one). Perhaps it is some quirk in Google Maps that is causing this.

To my mind, this is the roundabout where the accident happened. I'll happily be corrected if I am wrong.

Regardless, the roundabout is a busy one. I can only think that the car left the carriageway un-noticed and was then immediately hidden from view by the dense foliage. As has been pointed out, it isn't the first time that this is happened.

The roundabout you've linked to (Gabalfa Interchange, by the hospital) isn't the correct one, that's several miles west.

It would also be much harder to crash and be obscured on the Gabalfa roundabout - there's a flyover, a road under the roundabout (flyunder?) and a pedestrian walkway through the middle of it all.

They were found on the roundabout nearest Cardiff Garden Centre in St Mellons.

 

[QB2022]

Yes I thought the same. There's a few trees about but nothing like what you'd call dense undergrowth, and surely there would be some tyre marks in the grass where they left the road?

Many roads have tyre marks leaving it where they shouldn't. I imagine only someone who does the route routinely would notice fresh ones that might need checking

 

[rightsaidfred]

Many roads have tyre marks leaving it where they shouldn't. I imagine only someone who does the route routinely would notice fresh ones that might need checking

I agree - and you wouldn't think anything needed checking until you were aware of the case, and it wasn't in the press until late yesterday afternoon, 8 or 9 hours before they were found.

 

[grey345]

I guarantee this is the first thing they tried.

Very sad update this morning. We can only hope the two survivors make a full recovery.

The family were quoted at first saying the police had categorised it as low risk. Someone on this thread said they wouldn’t trace the phones until it was catagorised as high risk, which didn’t happen straight away on Saturday. But hopefully that isn’t true.

Three Newport women missing after night out in city - families 'worried sick'​

“THREE young women from the Newport area are missing after a night out in the city this weekend.

www.southwalesargus.co.uk
[...]

Sister of Eve Smith, LD, said her sister was last seen "in the Cardiff area at around 2am on Saturday morning".

She said the matter had been reported to the police yesterday (Saturday, March 4), but that she had been told it was "low-risk" at this time and that more time would have to pass before that status was changed.”

 

[Nikynoo]

Minor point, @rightsaidfred, but I'm not sure your link shows the correct roundabout (although your screenshot certainly shows the correct one). Perhaps it is some quirk in Google Maps that is causing this.

To my mind, this is the roundabout where the accident happened. I'll happily be corrected if I am wrong.

Regardless, the roundabout is a busy one. I can only think that the car left the carriageway un-noticed and was then immediately hidden from view by the dense foliage. As has been pointed out, it isn't the first time that this is happened.

Yes, I agree this is the correct roundabout.

 

[rightsaidfred]

To be honest, in almost all cases when someone's whereabouts are unknown after a night out, they'll have drunk a bit too much , crashed at a mates house, not have their phone charger with them so are uncontactable, and only wake up with a hangover at about 2pm.

I think we all did that when we were about 20. I know I did. My mum nearly had kittens.

Hindsight is 20/20, but I'm sure the police get a lot of calls from worried mums about their adult offspring who haven't made it home after a night out, and they almost always turn up within a few hours.

Was there anything to suggest that this was unlikely in this case in the initial hours?

 

[Firstsnow4]

Not that it matters but it looks as though it’s the roundabout by the Cardiff Garden Centre that is closed so presumably the car was found here. Tragically sad.

 

[Normal Norm]

The roundabout you've linked to (Gabalfa Interchange, by the hospital) isn't the correct one, that's several miles west.

It would also be much harder to crash and be obscured on the Gabalfa roundabout - there's a flyover, a road under the roundabout (flyunder?) and a pedestrian walkway through the middle of it all.

They were found on the roundabout nearest Cardiff Garden Centre in St Mellons.

There's definitely a gremlin at work somewhere in Google Maps. For me, it is your link that points to the Gabalfa roundabout, not mine!

But yes, we are all agreed that the roundabout in question is the one in St Mellons next to the garden centre.

It is a roundabout I have been on many times before, though not recently. Looking at Google Earth, there is plenty of advanced warning that the speed limit will be reducing to 30 miles per hour, but crucially there is no sign to indicate that there is a roundabout ahead! That is actually really poor, but it probably isn't the only factor at play here (IMO).

 

[grey345]

@rightsaidfred I guess the fact all three girls, three friends, were missing together is what was unusual. Less likely that all three of them would be uncontactable, especially since it was noted as out of character for all three.

 

[NextSprint]

Gwent Police graded this as Low Risk (LR) at the beginning, meaning no searches would have been carried out. Fine for Saturday morning maybe, but not pushing into Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Because of the circumstances of the disappearance - five young people missing simultaneously with no phone network activity, no social media activity, no attempt to contact family (x5 !) - this could have IMO been graded Medium Risk (MR) at least by Saturday evening.

An MR misper investigation would have resulted in searches, and notification to the UK Missing Persons Unit at the NCA. This isn't the same as a full-on High Risk (HR) which this became apparently after 8pm last night, but it may have been enough to settle the balance of probabilities and quite possibly find the car.

There is an inertia in many police forces that I've seen again and again and again, sometimes leading to loss of life. It's depressing. The police are our servants, they work for us and we have a right and duty as citizens to hold them accountable.

I feel like if Gwent Police weren't as dismissive and judgmental ("three young girls out on the lash, oh they'll turn up with a hangover soon" etc.) then lives may have been saved. I'm glad they've referred themselves to the IPOC, but it isn't enough, because there is a systemic failure across the UK in misper cases that often looks exactly the same as what happened here. IMO and JMO.

Missing persons | College of Policing

This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.

www.college.police.uk

 

[Firstsnow4]

Gwent Police graded this as Low Risk (LR) at the beginning, meaning no searches would have been carried out. Fine for Saturday morning maybe, but not pushing into Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Because of the circumstances of the disappearance - five young people missing simultaneously with no phone network activity, no social media activity, no attempt to contact family (x5 !) - this could have IMO been graded Medium Risk (MR) at least by Saturday evening.

An MR misper investigation would have resulted in searches, and notification to the UK Missing Persons Unit at the NCA. This isn't the same as a full-on High Risk (HR) which this became apparently after 8pm last night, but it may have been enough to settle the balance of probabilities and quite possibly find the car.

There is an inertia in many police forces that I've seen again and again and again, sometimes leading to loss of life. It's depressing. The police are our servants, they work for us and we have a right and duty as citizens to hold them accountable.

I feel like if Gwent Police weren't as dismissive and judgmental ("three young girls out on the lash, oh they'll turn up with a hangover soon" etc.) then lives may have been saved. I'm glad they've referred themselves to the IPOC, but it isn't enough, because there is a systemic failure across the UK in misper cases that often looks exactly the same as what happened here. IMO and JMO.

Missing persons | College of Policing

This page is from APP, the official source of professional practice for policing.

www.college.police.uk

I 100% agree with this - more resources should have been put into this sooner - and lives potentially could have been saved. IMO.

 

[NextSprint]

I guarantee this is the first thing they tried.

Very sad update this morning. We can only hope the two survivors make a full recovery.

They wouldn’t have done this until they changed the risk grade from Low to High.

 

[bringmeacupoft]

I wonder the sequence in which the girls were reported missing, and time difference which might add to how they were categorised.

Just thinking ‘out loud’.

 

[bringmeacupoft]

Police find car containing three people dead and two seriously injured

The A48 is closed in both directions at St Mellons after a car was found just after 12am on Monday morning

www.walesonline.co.uk

“Emergency services remain at the scene​

Two police vans are blocking the roundabout in one direction - the A48 slip road going on to Cypress Drive.

There is a long green screen blocking view into a wooded area by the side of the road.

Further up the blocked road there are more police cars and two fire engines. Cars are being allowed past on the opposite side of the road.”

 

[UK Girl]

I don't think we do know whose car it was, but Shane was 32 and has three young children on his Facebook cover photo and several of his past Facebook photos.

Looks like he's was on a driving ban
In court from Newport, Abertillery, Risca and Cardiff - Cardiff News

It looks like the car in question wasn't driven at all for a time, before being MOTd a fortnight ago, based on MOT logs and that corresponds with the driving ban

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/results?registration=VE64+ylb

does a year ban start from the day you are caught or the day you go to Court?