A 17-year-old was in police custody last night after a car sought since a mid-afternoon chase stretching more than 15km crashed in a narrow suburban Napier street as it was again being pursued by police.
The silver-coloured Nissan, believed stolen, was first involved in a chase pursued by five police
vehicles from Bay View to Napier at about 4.20pm before police lost sight of the vehicle in the streets of Pirimai and Onekawa.
Another chase started about 6.20pm but was over within minutes as the car turned from Nuffield Ave into the eastern end of Kettle Cres, Marewa, became out of control on a right-hand bend, and demolished a couple's letterbox and about three metres of a low concrete-block fence.
With five police vehicles quickly on the scene, the driver was arrested immediately, apparently suffering no more than a bloodied nose, and taken away by police. Residents were annoyed by the incident but thankful no children had been in the path of the car as they would have been when playing a short time earlier.
One child, the six-year-old son of resident Josh Porter, saw the crash from about 60 metres away, and rushed inside to tell his dad, who later watched police, firefighters and a vehicle salvage crew prepare to remove the crashed car.
