A fugitive was found hiding in a garden storage box following a police pursuit. Ryan Whitehead from Blaenavon had fled from police at the Port Of Dover following a traffic offence at the docks which prompted a high-speed police chase along the M20 motorway and then a foot race with officers after he crashed his car near Sevenoaks.
The 32-year-old’s time on the run came to end when officers found him hiding in a residential garden and arrested him in an incident caught in Kent Police bodycam footage.
Whitehead pleaded guilty to dangerous driving, driving without insurance, driving while disqualified, and assaulting an emergency worker when he appeared at Canterbury Crown Court.
With discounts for his guilty pleas he was sentenced to 12 months in prison. He will serve up to half the sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder int he community.
Whitehead was also disqualified from driving for four-and-a-half years and must take an extended test before he can get a licence.
Ryan Whitehead was sentenced to 12 months in prison -Credit:Kent Police
In April 2024 Whitehead was sentenced to 45 months at Swansea Crown Court for possession of crack cocaine with intent to supply and possession of heroin with intent to supply.
That conviction followed a road traffic collision in Blaenavon the previous month. When emergency services arrived at the scene they found Whitehead sat in a crashed car sniffing nitrous oxide canisters.
The defendant was arrested and searched and in his bum bag police found 56 individual wraps of crack cocaine and 30 wraps of heroin with a combined street value of almost £4,000 while in his pockets was some £273 in cash.
Police also recovered a Nokia burner phone containing messages relating to the supply of class A drugs including “text bombs” saying “Get your orders in” and one sent on the morning of his arrest saying “Active from 8.30. Drops. Both”. Don’t miss a court report by signing up to our crime newsletter here
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