Overview
- Police say the incident began on 25 March when Marshall Leese climbed into a Fiat Ducato ambulance parked in a triage bay at Royal Stoke University Hospital and drove off with a patient, a paramedic and a third person inside.
- Officers tracked the vehicle in its run-lock mode until Leese abandoned it at an Esso petrol station on London Road in Chesterton and fled into nearby woodland where a police dog located and bit him after he failed to comply.
- A second West Midlands Ambulance Service crew recovered the patient and returned them to hospital, and police have said no one was hurt during the incident.
- At Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court Leese pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, aggravated vehicle taking, failing to provide a specimen and driving without third-party insurance, and Judge Sally Hancox adjourned sentencing with Leese remanded in custody.
- Authorities and prosecutors stressed the case shows how run-lock operation can leave emergency crews and patients vulnerable and that charging choices by the CPS reflected legal thresholds rather than lack of evidence.