Snapchat issued 'legal warning' following deaths of two teens in car crash
Following an inquest into the deaths of two teenagers, Snapchat has been issued a legal warning from a coroner.
Matilda Seccombe, 16, and Harry Purcell, 17, lost their lives in a car crash back in April 2023 in Warwickshire, England.
Frank Wormald, 16, was also killed in the crash, which occurred near the town of Shipston-on-Stour in Stratford-on-Avon.
Driver Edward Spencer, 17, had only passed his driving test six weeks prior to the incident and was handed a two year custodial sentence for causing their deaths by careless driving.
An inquest into the deaths of Matilda Seccombe and Harry Purcell
In December 2025, an inquest took place into the deaths of two of the teenagers, where the coroner provided a Prevention of Future Deaths report.
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According to the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, this is part of the legal process where coroners have a statutory duty to make a report where, during an investigation, they identify circumstances that create a risk of future deaths.
The report must be issued to a ‘person, organization, local authority or government department/agency where the coroner believes they may have power to take relevant action to prevent future deaths’.
In this case, social media platform Snapchat was issued a warning after it was found that recordings of dangerous driving had been privately shared on the app.
Snapchat was formally obligated to respond to the warning with a plan of action within 56 days but according to the Warwickshire Coroner’s Office, they are yet to receive a response.
This failure to comply has now been raised with the chief coroner’s officer.
Snapchat failed to response to legal warning from coroner’s office
Now, due to the platform’s failure to respond, questions are being asked about how Snapchat plans to acknowledge the incident.
It’s important to note that a Prevention of Future Deaths report is not a court order and it doesn’t give the coroner a straightforward power to fine Snapchat for missing the deadline.
Snapchat could still submit a response late, although as of writing this, there is no public response currently available.
Speaking to The i Paper, Coventry and Warwickshire acting area coroner Linda Karen Hadfield Lee, said she had no information on whether Snapchat is able to detect or review dangerous-driving content.
She highlighted that sharing clips of dangerous driving could ‘normalize, encourage or reinforce risk-taking behavior’, adding that there is no publicly available information to show if Snapchat has safeguards to ‘identify repeated patterns of unsafe conduct among young users’.
UNILAD Tech has reached out to Snapchat for comment.