A man who took an ambulance containing a patient and paramedic has been sentenced to 21 months in prison. According to BBC News, Marshall Leese, 32, admitted to false imprisonment and aggravated vehicle taking following the incident on 25 March.
This story was first reported by BBC News.
Leese removed the ambulance from outside Royal Stoke University Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent and was pursued by police across a distance of two miles. The chase ended when he brought the vehicle to a halt at a petrol station on the A34 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, where he abandoned it and attempted to escape on foot. Officers deployed a police sniffer dog, which located him hiding in the vicinity of the petrol station.
The case represents a serious breach of public safety, as the ambulance was actively transporting a patient requiring medical care at the time of the theft. The presence of both a patient and a paramedic in the vehicle during the incident heightened the severity of the offence and the potential danger posed to those inside.
