AN ESCAPED prisoner used his car as a battering ram to smash into a woman police officer to evade arrest, the Old Bailey heard today.

Dc Catherine Corbett was "scooped up and catapulted backwards" fracturing her skull in the impact. Convicted fraudster Rashpal Singh, 43, also hit two other male officers and struck two police cars, the court heard.

He had been on the run for almost a year after absconding from prison where he was serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence, the jury heard. He was spotted in Hayes and surrounded by police officers who had kept him under surveillance in November 2007.

But even though his wife was with him in his car he decided to flee again, said Alex Lewis, prosecuting. "He used his car as a weapon, in effect, a battering ram, to evade capture and thwart the police from arresting him," she told the court. "At the time he was a wanted man having escaped from prison 11 months earlier."

Singh had been jailed at Birmingham crown court in November 2005. One year into his sentence in Worcestershire prison he was given a four-hour temporary release but failed to return to prison. West Midlands police finally surrounded him in Bath Road, Hayes.

When Dc Corbett approached Singh's Peueot 207 to speak to his wife, he "reversed, gunned the engine then accelerated at speed" and Dc Corbett was struck by the open passenger door.

Singh, of West Bromwich, denies causing grievous bodily harm with intent, causing actual bodily harm and dangerous driving.

The case continues.

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