A CAR chase in which six police vehicles were rammed ''like dodgems''
left four officers in hospital early yesterday.
Three police Range Rovers overturned during the chase, which started
when suspected burglars fled from Poulton, near Blackpool, Lancashire,
in a Transit van and a Ford Granada.
Two Maestro patrol cars were rammed by the van as the two vehicles
sped off towards the M55 motorway. A police Rover patrol car crashed
into a roundabout as it swerved to avoid the Granada, which was heading
the wrong way towards a motorway slip road.
Soon afterwards two police Range Rovers were rammed and rolled over as
they tried to stop the Transit on the M6 in a chase at more than 70mph.
The four officers from the two vehicles were all taken to hospital
with injuries described as ''not serious''. One was detained.
The two Range Rovers, worth #23,000 each, were both write-offs.
As the chase continued along the M6, M61, and M62 into Greater
Manchester with five more Range Rovers in pursuit of the van, another of
the police vehicles was rammed and overturned. The driver escaped
suffering from shock.
The chase ended when the Transit broke down on the hard shoulder of
the M62 and a 25-year-old man from Moston, Manchester, was arrested. He
was later being questioned by police at Fleetwood.
Police are still looking for two men who fled into fields from the
abandoned Granada near the M55 after the crash involving the Rover
patrol car.
A Lancashire police spokesman said: ''It was like dodgem cars. We are
just lucky no-one was killed.''
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