Witnesses to M6 crash sought

At 2224 hours on the evening of Saturday 14 June 2014, police received a call from a driver to say that his car had broken down in Lane 2 of the M6 northbound carriageway of the M6 between Junctions 17 and 18. The driver stated that he had been stationary in his blue Mercedes in Lane 2, due to traffic stopping as a result of an incident ahead, but when the traffic began to move , his car had appeared to suffer a breakdown. The driver and his two passengers, all from the Bradford area, subsequently left the Mercedes and awaited recovery at the side of the motorway.

Cheshire Police notified the Highways Agency of the breakdown and a Highways Officer was immediately dispatched. The Motorway signs were set to advise motorists to slow down as they approached the area.

At 2245 hours, a Ford Focus car collided with the rear of the stationary Mercedes. The four male occupants of the Focus were injured, and taken by ambulance to North Staffordshire Hospital. One, a 62 year old man, remains in a critical condition. Two others, aged 29 and 48 years, were detained with injuries. A third man , aged 57, was not seriously injured. All are from the Rochdale area.

The M6 northbound was closed between Junctions 17 and 18 to allow emergency services to deal with the incident, re-opening at 0240 a.m. on Sunday 15 June 2014.

Police are appealing to witnesses, and are keen to speak to anyone who may have witnessed any part of this incident and not yet made contact with police to ring the police non emergency number 101, quoting incident 1034 of 14/06/14.