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Getaway driver with no arms in 100mph chase
Felix Allen14 Sep 2009
A getaway driver with no arms led police on a 100mph chase through east London following a £175,000 raid on a jewellery store.
John Smith, 18, whose limbs end in stumps just below his elbows, was the designated driver for the heist despite needing someone to change gears for him.
He managed to keep control of the Ford Focus for 30 miles even though he was unable to hold the steering wheel as he and three friends fled from a raid on an Ernest Jones in Rainham, Essex, last December.
After a high-speed pursuit along the A2, the getaway car finally crashed on the approach to the Blackwall tunnel, but Smith continued to drive the heavily damaged car until police used their own car to force it against a tunnel wall, Maidstone Crown Court heard.
Smith, who cannot dress himself and lives with his mother in Holloway, north London, admitted his part in the raid and was given a 12-month youth custody sentence, suspended for two years.
The judge also ordered that he be tagged and put under a six-month curfew.
In mitigation, Lee Halliday-Davis said Smith had limited reading and writing skills. “Because of his naivety he did not fully accept that by sitting in the car he was actually involved in the burglary,” she said.
Smith had waited in the car as the other three, wearing hooded tops, used a claw hammer to smash a window at Ernest Jones at the Hempstead Valley shopping centre just before 2am on December 17 last year.
They stole £174, 445 worth of jewellery before returning to the waiting car.
Tyrone Tassell, 21, from Walthamstow, east London was jailed for 32 months after admitting burglary.
Sunni Sacco, 19, was sentenced to two years in a young offenders' institution, while Craig Phillips of Islington, north London, was given a two-year supervision order and a six-month electronically-tagged curfew.
Reader views (5)
I've heard of a One Armed Bandit but not a no arms bandit.
- Peter, Harrow, UK, 14/09/2009 15:41
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was the person changing gear his
"right hand man"?
- Mark Day, victoria canada, 14/09/2009 15:25
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OK you've got me bang to rights, I'll put me 'ands up to it.
- Kerry, purley, 14/09/2009 14:38
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'How do you plead?'
'Come on squire... let me off... it was just a bit of 'armless fun...'
- Sanjay, Hounslow, UK, 14/09/2009 13:40
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able bodied enough to commit crime. therefore should be able bodied enough to go to prison.
this country is a joke.
- Sense, LONDON, 14/09/2009 11:18
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