This is the moment a panicking new driver soaked an innocent pedestrian – as the police closed on his tail.
BMW worker Saud Shargawi’s new VW Passat was being closely followed by a Thames Valley Police patrol car on blue lights. The officer had tried to pull the 20-year-old’s saloon over in Cowley as the car came up on the police computer as uninsured.
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Shargawi, of Williamson Way, Oxford, was given 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for two years last month for dangerous driving.
Now, the shocking footage from the patrol car’s dashboard camera has been released by Thames Valley Police.
The video, which is three-and-a-half minutes long, shows Shargawi speeding down residential roads, going through bus gates and at one stage soaking an innocent pedestrian as he splashed through a puddle on the road.
PC Alex Norrish, of the Joint Operations Unit, said: “Despite being asked to stop, Shargawi drove dangerously in his attempt to evade officers.
“This put people’s lives at risk and thankfully no one was injured, however it could have ended very differently.
“As a result, Shargawi will not be able to drive for a year and could face time in prison if he reoffends.”
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Last month, Recorder of Oxford Judge Ian Pringle QC noted that Shargawi claimed he’d sped off from police as he feared he would lose his licence for driving uninsured.
“I’m afraid you made a bad mistake,” he said as he banned him from the roads for a year and ordered he pass an extended retest.
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