Two men died after police failed to close an icy road an hour before the crash, a jury inquest found this week.

Carl Bird, from High Wycombe, and Malcolm Tindall, from Aylesbury, were killed in a horror crash after their cars were involved in a full-frontal collision on an icy blackspot on the A413 near Great Missenden on March 4, 2014.

They were driving in opposite directions when they were involved in the accident between Bowood Lane and Leather Lane in the early hours of the morning.

It came after PC David Stamp, PC Hugh Flanagan and PC Caroline Irwin left the A413, where a car had crashed and driven away, just minutes before Mr Bird, 29, and Mr Tindall, 64, were killed at the same spot.

This week, a jury at a joint inquest which opened last month at Beaconsfield Coroner's Court, said that police should have “taken action” following the first crash, “such as placing appropriate signs, requesting gritters and staying at the scene until they arrived, closing the road and requesting appropriate support”.

They wrote: “A detailed investigation should have been undertaken based on the verbal information received prior to and at the scene of the first incident to identify the root cause.

“Subsequent actions should then have been implemented.”

They also said action should have been taken to stop the water from reaching the A413 in the first place, which is believed to have formed in the vicinity of a nearby cottage, which then spread across the carriageway by vehicles travelling on the A413 and froze due to weather conditions.

The three police officers avoided the sack after a misconduct hearing found them to have “breached standards” following a nine-day hearing, and gave them written warnings and “management advice”.

Following the inquest, Mr Tindall’s family paid tribute to the 64-year-old, saying their lives had “not been the same” since his death.

They said in a statement: “We think about him and miss him dearly every day. Getting to this point has been a long, stressful and painful experience.

“Although we welcome the conclusions of the jury and take this opportunity to thank them for their time in considering all the evidence, we still feel a great loss in our lives.

“We hope that lessons can and will be learnt to affect change so that no other family has to go through the same heartache and pain as we have had to endure for almost four years.”