IN early September 2017 Jacqueline Vodden was a passenger in a stolen car that crashed into a power pole in Ballarat.

Ten days later the 16–year–old was killed when another stolen vehicle she was in hit a parked truck on the Western Freeway during a police pursuit.

She had become friends with the 17–year–old male driver just weeks before her death.

He had a significant criminal history, was linked to a string of burglaries and thefts across Ballarat, and was on bail and subject to a police operation at the time.

Officers were out on patrol looking for him when they heard reports of a stolen van casing homes. In their search for the teen and the van, they found both and pursued.

Coroner Sarah Gebert is now investigating the pursuit and the circumstances leading to Ms Vodden's death.

After spotting the van just outside Ballan, officers turned on their lights and sirens, and tried to pull the car over.

There were four officers in the car, driven by a senior constable who has been excused from giving evidence to the inquest on health grounds.

The van did not stop and by the time they reached Ballan, they were officially in pursuit, reaching 100km/h in the township and once the van hit the freeway it got to 130km/h.

The driver tried to overtake a B–double truck in a service lane.

"I instantly felt that the pursuit should be terminated," the officer behind the wheel wrote in a statement.

It was the first time the driver had given officers a reason to believe he was a danger to the public, but before they could ease off the van collided with a parked VicRoads truck in the service lane.

Ms Vodden was thrown from the van and suffered fatal head, chest, pelvic and leg injuries.

The teen driver suffered minor injuries and ran off before stealing another car to get away.

He was later arrested and found to have had methamphetamine and other drugs in his system at the time of the crash.

He pleaded guilty to culpable driving causing Ms Vodden's death and was jailed for eight years in 2018.

That sentence was reduced to six years, with a minimum of four, on appeal.

The inquest is investigating decisions made in the lead–up to and during the police pursuit, including the risk assessment conducted by officers throughout, why some details about the van's movements and speeds were not passed on to the pursuit controller, and whether the pursuit controller had adequate information to assess and understand the risks.

It's expected to run for four days. –AAP