Pensioner In Bizarre Seat-Belt Arrest

The police have claimed that a 70-year-old man they had stopped for not wearing a seatbelt and who was later dragged violently from his car and manhandled after they had smashed his car window had "behaved aggressively".

An official investigation has been launched after a video of the officers conduct emerged.

It showed Robert Clive Whatley - a retired businessman from Usk - who has suffered a stroke and takes medication for a heart condition, challenged by Gwent police in Cymbran for not wearing a seatbelt.

The pensioner was initially stopped because he was not wearing a seatbelt and then forcibly detained when his Range Rover was again halted after a 30mph chase, with officers leaping on to the bonnet and also smashing a window before dragging him from the driver's seat.

The police video shows the chase, with sirens blaring as police and suspect drove along country roads, keeping well in to the correct side of the road and within the speed limit.

At one point a police voice is heard calmly saying: "No change, no change, four zero or 30 miles an hour, still on the right side of the road, quite happy to continue."

But, the scene changes dramatically when the Range Rover is stopped, apparently by a stinger device laid across the road by police from another unit, who also flag down the car on foot.

Immediately, one policeman leaps from the following car, runs to the Range Rover and tries to smash the window with a baton, while a man from the other unit leaps on to the bonnet and a voice from inside the car can faintly be heard repeating: "Get off, get off!"

A passing motorist stops to see what is happening but is ordered back into his car by the police.

Eventually the pensioner is dragged by the arm out of his car.

The drama began when he drove off as the police were issuing a fixed penalty notice, and later told Caerphilly Magistrates Court that he thought the police were finished with him and he needed his medication.

When he realised he was being followed by a patrol car with flashing blue lights and sirens, he thought they were giving him a police escort home, he told the court.

"My survival instinct was such was that I was trying to assist the officer the best I could. I feared another stroke. I thought he had finished with me. I just drove off coolly and calmly and not off at speed."

(BMc/CD)