Leasowe driving instructor died in suicide fireball

Sep 24 2008 by Sue McCann, Wallasey News

A DRIVING instructor from Leasowe with a grudge against the police turned his van into a fireball after vowing to kill as many officers as possible, an inquest heard.

Terence Langrell, 42, burned to death after strapping three propane gas canisters and two water butts of petrol behind the driver’s seat of his Ford Transit van in Toxteth in August last year.

The Liverpool inquest heard it was the eighth anniversary of his 1999 caution for attempting to procure an act of gross indecency with a 14-year-old in North Wales.

Fire investigators said he laced the seat and himself with accelerant before setting himself on fire, probably with a disposable lighter, near Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral.

A fragment of a note in the van read: “You lot abuse your powers and do what you want. I will make you pay for the last six years. I will kill as many police as I can.”

Five police officers were injured by the massive explosion when they approached the vehicle.

Mr Langrell, a BSM driving instructor, lived with his parents in Boyd Close and had shares and savings worth more than £40,000 in various accounts.

Police followed him after seeing him driving suspiciously. Other officers joined the pursuit.

When PC Andrew Astle opened the door of Mr Langrell’s van, he unwittingly fed oxygen into the fire, which had not fully ignited because of the fuel vapour-rich atmosphere inside.

Officers scrambled for coats to pat down colleagues who staggered from the scene in flames while the blast blew one PC against her own vehicle.

Detective Superintendent David Kelly told the inquest: “I believe he intended to deliberately kill police officers.

“My opinion is he was luring more and more cars into the pursuit.”

The inquest heard Mr Langrell was a loner and “paranoid”, believing Merseyside’s police helicopter was following him.

In 2003, he went to Arrowe Park Hospital and asked for a psychiatrist, saying “life was not worth living”. A psychiatrist concluded he could be suffering paranoid schizophrenia.

The inquest jury found Mr Langrell had killed himself.