Shocking body-worn camera footage (scroll down for video), which shows a 45-year-old man ramming a police vehicle, leaving PD ‘Socks’ distressed and upset, has been released by Northants Police.
On 26th February 2021, Alexander James Lundy stole an Audi from a driveway in Cold Ashby, running over the rightful owner’s foot in the process.
Police officers were deployed to the incident and the Audi was found abandoned a short time later.
However, as one police officer was making enquiries in the local area as to whether anyone had seen the suspect, Lundy drove at him in another car.
Lundy was tracked to Rothwell, where he was blocked into a driveway by quick-thinking PC Lucy Sculthorpe, one of the Force’s dog handlers.
PC Sculthorpe told Lundy to stay where he was and got one of her two dogs, PD Bryn, out of her car.
However Lundy proceeded to ram her police van, nearly squashing her and Bryn against a stone wall in the process.
In her statement following the incident, Lucy wrote:
“PD Bryn is trained to protect me.
“He is a young, enthusiastic dog who is committed to his job and I trust him implicitly. However, it is also my job to protect him and I knew that if I allowed him to continue trying to get to the suspect then there was a high risk that he would be injured under the wheels of the BMW or by being squashed against the wall.
“For this reason I made the decision, as soon as the suspect started driving forwards, to jump backwards away from the BMW and pull Bryn away as well so that he wouldn’t be hurt.
“I didn’t expect the suspect to reverse back again and so when he did I feared he was aiming for me and Bryn to prevent us from trying to stop him. I was fearful of Bryn or I being injured.”
Lundy drove off, leading officers on a chase around Rothwell before he crashed the car into a tree in Moorfield Road.
He was chased by one officer who jumped a garden fence in order to catch up with him.
When Lundy saw the officer’s Taser, he gave up and was arrested.
Lucy continued: “After the incident, I checked Bryn over for injuries and saw that he thankfully, appeared to be okay. I then got PD Socks out of the police vehicle to check him over as he had been inside when it was being rammed.
“PD Socks is normally a very friendly, lively, sociable little dog who loves people.
“When I first got him out of the van after this incident he seemed a little shaken, he would normally look at me straight away for his ball but he just wandered around on the grass for a few minutes and when a male nearby spoke to me, he moved away from him whereas he would normally go over to someone and look for attention.
“I reassured him and put him back in the van to settle whilst I tried to source another one to transfer both dogs into so that mine could be recovered.
“The following day when I put Bryn and Socks in the van to go for a walk I noticed that Socks was much more unsettled than he usually is – he was pacing around the pod and standing up whereas he would normally just lay down for the whole journey.
“I believe that the incident unsettled him and made him temporarily more nervous of being in the van.
“This took a couple of days to resolve and I made several short test journeys with him to reassure him that he would be okay.”
Thankfully, with Lucy’s help, PD Socks has made a full recovery following the incident and is back to his lively, happy self with numerous successful incidents attended since.
The ramming attack caused £3,700 damage to the police car and left it so battered it couldn’t be driven.
Earlier this year, Lundy admitted a string of offences in connection with the incident and was jailed for a total of three years at Northampton Crown Court.
Lead investigators, DC Ali Deamer and DC Karen Rohman-Johnson, said:
“We are really pleased Alex Lundy was given three years behind bars and sincerely hope he uses this time to think about his actions in order to make better choices when he is released from prison.
“His behaviour that day was dangerous, violent and reckless. He could have caused serious, if not fatal injuries, to the police officers, police dogs and members of the public involved. We really hope he continues to reflect on that fact.”
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