Hawkes Bay police pursuit ends in dramatic arrest: 'The car spun out of control'

Numerous police vehicles attended a scene at Railway Rd yesterday after a person fled the police. Photo/Tim Whittaker Photography

A police pursuit ended in a dramatic arrest on Railway Rd yesterday afternoon after a person fled the scene of a domestic dispute and failed to stop for police.

At about 3pm yesterday police were called to an address in Hastings where it was reported that a male was assaulting a female while in possession of a knife.

Before police arrived at the address the offender left in a Ford Falcon and a patrol car responding to the incident came across the offender.

The man was signalled to stop but refused to do so; resulting in a brief pursuit where police staff used road spikes at two locations.

Napier resident Tony Jones was driving to Hastings from Waipukurau yesterday afternoon when he was pulled over by police who had laid out road spikes 1km from the Longlands Rd intersection on Railway Rd.

Mr Jones said the car, which was being pursued by two police vehicles, managed to evade the road spikes by driving onto the grass verge beside the road and around a car which had stopped on the road in front of the spikes.

"The car was heading south towards the Pakipaki roundabout where it ended up swerving on the road, around the spikes and doing an erratic U-turn," he said.

Mr Jones said smoke streamed from the tyres as they spun around on the sealed road; leaving big black marks.

After the dramatic evasion Mr Jones said the car drove back the way it came with the police in pursuit.

"It was quite impressive to be honest. It all happened pretty quickly. When I got pulled over and saw the spikes I knew something was going on," he said.

While the suspect managed to successfully escape the first set of road spikes it was the second set that saw his undoing.

Police reported that road spikes eventually resulted in the Falcon's tyres being deflated. Although despite having two fully deflated tyres, the offender continued to drive until the vehicle became uncontrollable, veered off the road and onto the grass verge.

"The car spun out of control and it looked like they were trying to drive with blown tyres," Mr Jones said.

It was then that the police barricaded the suspects' vehicle on the side of the road with police cars and pulled the driver out from behind the wheel.

Mr Jones said he thought the driver was male as it appeared the suspect had no shirt on.

Hawke's Bay photographer Tim Whittaker said he heard "a hell of a lot of sirens" before seeing numerous police cars parked up about 1km south of the Longlands Rd intersection.

The sole male occupant was arrested at the scene. The 24 year old Hastings man is to appear in the Hastings District Court tomorrow on several charges in relation to the domestic assault as well as failing to stop for police.