A 23-year-old Auckland man sparked a massive police chase when he escaped custody following a court appearance.
Douglas Hayes had appeared in the Taupo District Court charged with attacking Turangi Senior Constable Steve McLardy earlier this month and was being escorted to a prison truck parked in the court compound.
Taupo police
said as Hayes walked towards the truck he was able to free himself from police and climbed over a 1.8 metre security fence to escape.
He was then chased.
After 30 minutes, by which time Hayes was a passenger in a car, police were able to surround him in a service lane behind Burger King and Liquor King on Roberts St, where they arrested him without incident.
There were two other people in the car who were also apprehended by the police.
Taupo police are speaking with the pair regarding their involvement in Hayes' escape.
A witness to the arrest, who did not want to be identified, said he saw "heaps of cops" crawl past the service lane and surround a car.
The next thing he saw was police escorting Hayes to a police car.
"There were a lot of plain clothes cops and uniformed cops coming from each end of the alleyway and they just surrounded another car," he said.
"I didn't see a man get out of the car but all of a sudden the cops went behind the Liquor King shed. After a few minutes they had a guy with no shirt on and they walked him around and put him into one of the cop cars.
"That's all I saw - but they definitely had their man."
Taupo police Senior sergeant Tony Jeurissen said Hayes would appear in the Taupo District Court today facing new charges.
He said police would be making no further comment regarding the incident.
On Sunday, April 10, Hayes allegedly punched and knocked Mr McLardy unconscious after failing a breath test when he was pulled over on State Highway 1 near Turangi. Mr McLardy suffered head and facial injuries.
