A WELLINGTON teenager killed on the M5 after fleeing a police car stopping on the hard shoulder had a history of attempting to escape from moving vehicles, a coroner was told.

Seventeen-year-old Tamzin Hall, a former Court Fields School pupil, slipped her handcuffs and climbed from the rear to the front of the car before running across the northbound carriageway between Taunton and Bridgwater.

Tamzin, whom police were taking to a custody suite in Bridgwater, reached the southbound lanes before she was hit and killed by a car in November, 2024.

Senior Somerset Coroner Samantha Marsh held a pre-inquest review in Taunton attended by Tamzin’s mother Amy, her brother, and family barrister Ciara Bartlam.

Mrs Marsh heard Tamzin, who was on the autism spectrum, had four times tried to exit moving vehicles in the year before the tragedy.

The coroner was told Somerset Council in 2022 tried to find a place for Tamzin in a secure home but there was nothing available.

Ms Bartlam said police would not have been needed on the night of Tamzin’s death had she been in secure accommodation.

A healthcare order covering Tamzin required up to three adults to be with her, but there were only two police officers in the car at the time.

Mrs Marsh said a full inquest hearing would take place before a jury in Wells Town Hall some time next January.

Separately, an inquiry by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) into Tamzin’s death is still ongoing.

The IOPC has been looking at the ‘actions, decision-making, and risk assessments’ by the officers involved and whether they followed relevant training and policies.

It said Tamzin had been handcuffed and sat in the police car’s rear passenger seat with an officer beside her, but still managed to exit the moving vehicle through the front passenger door.