Ashfield councillor 'did not realise' he was being chased by police through Sutton

Nottingham Magistrates' Court heard a police officer spotted Coun Tom Hollis ‘flying’ along Outram Street in his £50,000 Range Rover Evoque, at twice the 30mph speed limit, and said: “Bloody hell, that's travelling.”

Hollis ‘almost collided’ with another police car as the officers began following him on August 17, 2020, at about 10pm.

When Errol Ballantyne, Hollis’s barrister, suggested his client was travelling at normal speeds, the officer replied: “No, he wasn’t.”

And when Mr Ballantyne said Hollis’s car was not ‘bouncing around’ as it went over speed bumps, the officer said: “Yes it was.”

Hollis denies driving without due care and attention.

His trial heard the police officer activated his blue lights on Northern Bridge Road and sounded the siren just before Hollis reversed into the unmarked police car on the garage forecourt at Asda, Priestsic Road.

A second officers said: “If I was a bit quicker out of the vehicle, that could have been myself who got crushed between the two vehicles.”

The court heard Hollis had been playing bingo with friends that evening, after ‘lots of stress at work’, but denied driving carelessly or speeding.

Hollis said the allegations were ‘laughable’ and disproved by CCTV.

He told the court he did not think he was being followed, hit the police car by accident at 5mph and became frustrated because he had recently been pulled over three times by police.

Mark Fielding, prosecuting, asked him: “Are you really saying you didn't notice all those flashing lights?”

Hollis, aged 29, of Yew Tree Drive, Huthwaite, replied: “I think any reasonable driver would have taken the same steps as me.”

Mr Fielding said: “You reversed without a thought, or you did it because you were frustrated by police harassment.”

Hollis, Ashfield Independents Ashfield Council member for Huthwaite & Brierley and Nottinghamshire Council member for Sutton West, said: “As far as I was concerned that space was clear.”

District judge Grace Leong said the case was first brought before the courts in 2021 and had been ‘relisted and relisted’.

Earlier yesterday, in the same court, Hollis was found guilty of harassment without violence, following a two-day trial.