A convicted paedophile who tried to flee his first day in court for possessing hundreds of indecent child images was dramatically rammed off the road by police after a high-speed chase through Cambridgeshire.
Dangerous Flight from Justice
Luke Jarrett, 26, was spotted driving erratically between lorries in his green Jeep Cherokee along the A4 after failing to appear at Cambridge Magistrates' Court that morning. The Wisbech man was due to face charges relating to possessing illicit images of children.
Instead of facing justice, Jarrett accelerated to 64 mph in a 50-mph zone, swerved into oncoming traffic, and recklessly overtook vehicles with police in hot pursuit. Officers engaged in a dramatic chase to stop him as he refused to pull over, endangering innocent members of the public.
The Dramatic Capture and Shocking Evidence
Dashcam footage captured the moment police made 'tactical contact' with Jarrett's vehicle, sending his 4x4 careering off the road and flipping it over. The footage shows Jarrett clambering out of the smashed window of his overturned vehicle only to be immediately placed in handcuffs.
Jarrett was on bail at the time after being charged with child image offences. When officers arrested him in 2024, they seized his electronic devices and discovered a massive collection of illegal material including:
- 703 indecent images of children
- 771 indecent videos of children
- 638 extreme pornographic images
- 288 distributed indecent photographs of a child
The investigation revealed he had uploaded an indecent image of a child to the internet on 5 October 2023.
Sentencing and Consequences
Jarrett, of Lords Lane, Wisbech, was ultimately jailed for three years and four months at Cambridge Crown Court. He pleaded guilty to:
- Dangerous driving
- One count of distributing an indecent image of a child
- Three counts of making an indecent image of a child
- Two further counts of distributing an indecent photograph of a child
- Possessing an extreme pornographic image
In addition to his prison sentence, Jarrett was handed an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order, ordered to sign the Sex Offenders Register indefinitely, and banned from driving for five years.
DC Simon Law, who led the investigation, commented: 'Creating indecent images and then sharing them may not be a physical offence, but it still harms the child victims. Jarrett clearly did not want to face justice for these crimes, which may lie behind his reckless and dangerous driving that endangered innocent members of the public on the day of his first court appearance.'
