130mph town centre chase is seen on camera
DASHCAM footage from a police chase that involved a dangerous driver’s VW Golf reaching 130mph after powering through narrow town centre streets has been released.
The minute-long clip shows the “high-powered” hatchback bolting through Widnes, squeezing past a van onto a roundabout, dodging a bus and jumping a red light during its escape.
At one point, the police dashcam speedometer reaches 94mph as the chase hurtles along Ashley Way.
Behind the wheel was trucker Ben Winstanley, 39, of Chidlow Close, Widnes, who is now serving a 24-week prison sentence for dangerous driving.
The clip was one of five shown at Liverpool Crown Court, where prosecutor Bernice Campbell recounted how an unmarked Cheshire Police patrol had spotted the white Golf on Pitt Street shortly after 11am on October 13, and tried to pull it over.
Winstanley pretended to comply by turning on his left indicator and slowing before he turned sharply in the opposite direction and zoomed away.
The chase lasted several minutes and ended when Winstanley’s Golf reached 130mph on Watkinson Way and police called off the pursuit as it was too dangerous, albeit having captured vital dashcam footage.
Officers found the car abandoned on Barrow’s Green Lane. As noted by defence barrister Kate Morley, “fortuitously no-one was injured, nor was any damage caused”.
She said Winstanley had been on the way to a hospital appointment when he saw the police car trying to pull him over and he “panicked”, adding he had now quit cannabis.
A month earlier Winstanley had been arrested for drug driving when he was found with cannabis and a grinder in his car’s centre console, for which he pleaded guilty in December.
In relation to the chase, Judge Denis Watson, QC, sentenced him to 24 weeks in prison and banned him from driving for 15 months with a mandatory retest.
He also ordered Winstanley to pay £340 to prosecution costs and a statutory surcharge.
The court heard Winstanley had lost his job as a lorry driver as a result of his legal proceedings.
Judge Watson said Winstanley had “succeeded in outrunning the police in Widnes” and the dashcam footage was “extremely illuminating”.
Speculating as to why Winstanley fled, the judge dismissed alcohol as a possibility and said “we will never know” if it was due to cannabis, as the Golf “outran” its pursuers.
Sending down Winstanley, Judge Watson said: “The pursuit was something in the order of two-anda-half miles by my estimate and because of the extremely high speed lasted possibly something in the order of three minutes, at times through narrow streets, at times on dual carriageways which are around the area of Widnes, but the police were pursuing you.
“You went through several red lights, you barged your way through traffic, that was while you were forcing your way through causing others to take evasive action.”