This morning, the SKWAWKBOX published exclusive video and eye-witness testimony of an incident that took place yesterday afternoon on the King’s Road in Chelsea. The incident had gone almost unreported and the one article in circulation about it did not portray anything like the scale of the incident shown by the video footage.
Celebrity Natalie Rowe, who captured the scenes on video, expressed her surprise that police were taking no witness statements at the scene – and insisted that the crash of a motorbike into a car had occurred while police motorcyclists, who arrived on the scene within seconds, were in pursuit of the bike.
Now the Metropolitan Police have provided a response to yesterday’s press enquiry by the SKWAWKBOX. Emphases have been added by this blog:
Police were alerted initially at 15:30hrs on Tuesday 17 October to reports of a robbery of a woman in Cadogan Square, Chelsea, committed by two men on a moped who fled the scene with her wristwatch.
Several hours later, around 17:00 hours on the same day, police were called regarding reports of a moped with two men behaving in a suspicious manner in the same location, Cadogan Square. When officers attended the moped made off at speed down the King’s Road.
Shortly afterwards, the moped was in collision with a car. The male passenger on the moped fled before officers arrived at the scene, but the rider, a 24-year-old male, was present and London Ambulance was called. There were no injuries to the individual in the car.
The driver of the moped was taken to hospital for treatment where he currently remains, but his condition is not deemed to be life threatening or life changing. This man was subsequently arrested on suspicion of a series of traffic offences and robbery, and bailed to return to a central London police station on a date in early November.
As would be expected, the police statement gives a dry minimum of detail of the incident. But there may be questions in the minds of readers whether the pursuit of two men who stole a wristwatch and were then seen behaving ‘in a suspicious manner’ in the same place would merit the scale of pursuit and the number of vehicles and officers – some with dogs – that the video footage revealed at and around the scene.
Or for that matter, does it merit ‘hot pursuit’ across – according to the senior police officer at the scene – a wide area by a range of police vehicles, including at least two in very close pursuit at the time the fleeing motorcyclist lost control and hit a car?
Watch the full five minute video:
Interestingly, the Met’s response email was also copied to a reporter from the Trinity Mirror group of newspapers, who had made an enquiry later – when the SKWAWKBOX spoke to the Met last night, there had been no other enquiries. So perhaps this is yet another instance of the mainstream press paying attention to events raised by the SKWAWKBOX.
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Is this just another one of those obscene, London-centric police overreactions?
Meanwhile, in the real world – i.e. outside the M25 – mopeds are chased by coppers on pushbikes as Theresa May’s savage cuts continue to take hold.
Typical of police – hot on the less important matters and like chocolate teapots when it does. It must be an inherent feature and requirement of being in the police – prepared to act irrationally, like thugs and I know from experience that police and force solicitors like Roger Trencher are out and out liars.