Grandmother dies as police chase stolen car
Daily Mail
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An independent inquiry was under way today after a woman was killed as police chased a stolen car.
And a mother and her two young boys are fighting for their lives after the car thief ploughed into all four of them as they crossed a busy road.
Police were following the driver of a silver Honda Civic which had been "carjacked" minutes earlier by an armed man.
The saloon was driven away from the scene of the hijacking in South Tyneside and the driver ploughed into two parked cars while being pursued by police.
Seconds later the car thief crashed into the mother, aged 28, the children, who were in a double buggy pram, and a woman in her 40s as they crossed Horsley Hill Road in South Shields.
Northumbria Police said the older woman, named in reports as Pamela Phinn, who was from South Tyneside, died following the crash.
It is understood Mrs Phinn was the injured children's grandmother.
Eyewitnesses were said to have seen Mrs Phinn try to shove the pram out of the way of the car which was believed to be speeding at up to 80 mph.
But the pram was said to have been thrown 20ft into the air as the grandmother took the full force of the crash. The incident happened at 2.10pm yesterday after a motorist was forced to leave his Honda Civic by an armed thief. The man brandished a weapon as he forced the driver from the car in the town's busy Western Approach.
A marked patrol car was alerted to the incident after the victim of the hijacking contacted police. As police followed the stolen car it collided with two parked cars in Westoe Road.
May 12, 2006
Daily Mail
_______
An independent inquiry was under way today after a woman was killed as police chased a stolen car.
And a mother and her two young boys are fighting for their lives after the car thief ploughed into all four of them as they crossed a busy road.
Police were following the driver of a silver Honda Civic which had been "carjacked" minutes earlier by an armed man.
The saloon was driven away from the scene of the hijacking in South Tyneside and the driver ploughed into two parked cars while being pursued by police.
Seconds later the car thief crashed into the mother, aged 28, the children, who were in a double buggy pram, and a woman in her 40s as they crossed Horsley Hill Road in South Shields.
Northumbria Police said the older woman, named in reports as Pamela Phinn, who was from South Tyneside, died following the crash.
It is understood Mrs Phinn was the injured children's grandmother.
Eyewitnesses were said to have seen Mrs Phinn try to shove the pram out of the way of the car which was believed to be speeding at up to 80 mph.
But the pram was said to have been thrown 20ft into the air as the grandmother took the full force of the crash. The incident happened at 2.10pm yesterday after a motorist was forced to leave his Honda Civic by an armed thief. The man brandished a weapon as he forced the driver from the car in the town's busy Western Approach.
A marked patrol car was alerted to the incident after the victim of the hijacking contacted police. As police followed the stolen car it collided with two parked cars in Westoe Road.
May 12, 2006
