‘Foolish fridge exchange’ on A50 slip road put lives at risk

AN exchange of a suspected fridge on a slip road leading to the A50 has “horrified” police officers who were assisting schoolchildren from John Port Academy along Derbyshire’s most dangerous walk to school.

Police were called to the area to assist a tyre blow-out underneath the carriageway on the A516 between Etwall and Hilton. Officers from Etwall, Hatton and Hilton Police’s safer neighbourhoods team were helping “dozens” of children across the busy carriageway on Friday, part of Derbyshire’s scariest walk to school, when a silver Vauxhall Astra estate car and silver Mercedes pulled over onto the hard shoulder on the slip road leading to the A50 eastbound.

Assuming the cars had broken down, the officers were about to offer assistance before witnessing “two men, one of whom was dressed in a high-visibility orange vest, dragging a hefty cardboard-clad product of a similar size and appearance to a domestic fridge from one vehicle and into the other car.”

Etwall, Hatton and Hilton Police SNT have now launched an investigation into the incident to identify the two men involved in an “outrageous foolish fridge exchange” on an “extremely dangerous roadway.”