South Yorkshire Police refers itself to watchdog after misidentifying Rotherham crash victims
The force wrongly claimed a teenager had survived, when in fact he had died
Last updated 6th Jan 2026
South Yorkshire Police has apologised and referred itself to the regulator after making a mistake in identifying the victims of a fatal crash in Rotherham last month.
The force says it wrongly said a teenager was in hospital when he'd in fact died in the collision.
The single vehicle collision on Todwick Road on December 13th led to the death of a 17 year old girl, with police initially identifying the other fatality as 17 year old Trevor Wynn.
They thought another teenager under sedation in hospital was 18 year old Joshua Johnson.
However after forensic tests its now emerged that Joshua was the second fatality on the 13th, with Trevor being the one alive in hospital.
Assistant Chief Constable Colin McFarlane, of South Yorkshire Police, said: “This has obviously come as a huge shock to everyone and we recognise the additional trauma this may cause."
"We are supporting Trevor and all the families through this and have engaged specialist agencies to help provide that support.
"I have also offered to meet with both sets of parents as I am sure they will have many questions, most of which we are not able to answer yet but we are absolutely committed to understanding how this happened so it cannot happen again.
“We have taken the decision to refer ourselves to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to consider our role in the identification processes which were followed following the road traffic collision.
“We will co-operate fully with any subsequent investigation and will be led by the IOPC on the next steps to determine how this happened, and how we can ensure this never happens again in the future.”
The IOPC will now consider if there was any wrongdoing around the way the victims were identified.
Two other teenagers, aged 18 and 19, remain on bail after being questioned over the crash.