Drug User Jailed 21 Months for Stealing Ambulance With Patient Inside
Marshall Leese, 32, was jailed for 21 months at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court after stealing an ambulance from Royal Stoke University Hospital with an elderly patient and a paramedic inside. He sped through red lights while police chased him.
A drug user who stole an ambulance with an elderly patient and a paramedic inside has been jailed for 21 months at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court. Marshall Leese, 32, took the vehicle from outside the Royal Stoke University Hospital on March 25.
Leese, a prolific user of the drug monkey dust, sped through red lights as police chased him. Had the ambulance crashed, the patient would have died, the court heard.
He stopped at a petrol station on the A34 in Newcastle-under-Lyme and fled. A police sniffer dog found him hiding nearby.
How the theft unfolded
Leese, of Denbigh Street in Hanley, had admitted false imprisonment and aggravated vehicle taking. Recorder Ben Williams KC said he struck while the driver was inside the hospital holding the keys.
"The driver had left it in a mode which meant it still was running while he went inside... leaving his colleague in the back with an elderly patient and that gentleman's carer," Williams said.
Paramedics had "ushered out" Leese from the driver's seat of a different ambulance moments earlier, the court heard. Footage played in court showed him getting into the Fiat Ducato and driving away.
The paramedic leaned into the front compartment and shouted at him to stop. Williams told Leese that once he kept driving, he had intentionally committed false imprisonment.
The paramedic was "terrified" and grabbed a metal pole, threatening to hit Leese with it, the recorder said. The patient, in his 80s and on blood thinners, was being treated for a head injury.
Defense and sentence
Jennifer Devans-Tamakloe, defending, said Leese led an "extraordinarily difficult and chaotic lifestyle" and had abused alcohol and drugs for a long time. A medical report found a "complex delusional belief system" and concluded he believed he was being controlled.
"I do think you need help as much as punishment," Williams said. He noted Leese was vulnerable in prison and had been victimized by other inmates. Doubts about successful rehabilitation, he said, made a custodial sentence necessary.
West Midlands Ambulance Service said a second ambulance was sent to where Leese stopped, to take the patient back to hospital. A welfare check was carried out on the paramedic.
Staffordshire Police said police dog Foxy found Leese in nearby woodland and he was bitten on the hand when he failed to comply with instructions. He initially denied the offences, claiming he had been cycling to look for a friend.
"This was a particularly dangerous incident which could have ended very differently if it wasn't for the quick actions of officers to apprehend Leese," said Det Con Lili Rose Gregory.
The ambulance service called the act "incredibly dangerous and reckless". It said the theft also "took a vital emergency vehicle away from patients who may desperately have needed it."
