A police van driver has been removed from driving duties as an inquiry is launched into the death of a man following a car chase.

Steven Moore was killed and his two friends injured when a car being chased by a police van ploughed into his vehicle as it waited at a junction.

Mr Moore, 25, a former buyer for British Petroleum, died in hospital on Monday following the crash at 12.45am on Sunday morning.

Mr Moore was sitting in the back seat of a Renault Clio on Wrythe Lane near the junction with Wrythe Green Lane, Carshalton, when a black Vauxhall Vectra being pursued by a marked police van smashed into it.

The former Greenshaw High School student suffered massive injuries in the crash and died the next day.

The two other passengers of the Clio - Mr Moore’s best friend Glenn Purvey, 24, of Sutton, and Mr Purvey’s girlfriend Rhia Vassallo, 22, who was driving at the time, were all taken to a South London hospital and suffered minor injuries.

The driver of the Vectra, a 29-year-old man was arrested nearby and has now been bailed till a date in May.

The police van driver has not been suspended, but has been removed from driving duties “as is routine”, police said.

Miss Vassallo had just picked up Mr Moore and Mr Purvey, both avid Tottenham Hotspur fans, from Carshalton Beeches train station after they had been to watch their team play Hull City.

Mr Purvey, who works at the same company as Mr Moore and was knocked unconscious in the crash, said Mr Moore was a man “who everybody thought the world of”.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Service and Directorate of Professional Standard are investigating.

Police originally began following the car on Carshalton Road West, near Sutton Police Station, after being “drawn to its manner of driving”.

A police spokeswoman said whether the police van’s lights and siren were used was part of the DPS investigation.