A Sydney driver accused of leading police on a high-speed chase in Guildford before spectacularly crashing into three parked cars allegedly said he was being \u201can idiot\u201d when he made the split-second decision to flee from police.<\/p>\n
Ayman Ajouz, 26, fronted Parramatta Local Court on Thursday for the first time since he was granted conditional bail two weeks ago, after a dramatic early-morning arrest that saw him dragged from his high-powered Holden HSV Commodore by Raptor Squad police.<\/p>\n
Video footage of the incident, obtained by media outlets, allegedly shows two officers pull Ajouz from the driver\u2019s seat and wrestle him to the ground with force.<\/p>\n
Police will allege they were patrolling Woodville Rd just before 2am on May 17 when they spotted the Commodore travelling northbound at almost double the signposted 60km\/hr speed limit.<\/p>\n
Officers activated the police car\u2019s lights and sirens in a bid to pull the Commodore over, but it is alleged Ajouz sped off, prompting the officers to give chase.<\/p>\n
According to police, Ajouz at one stage allegedly turned his headlights off and crossed to the wrong side of the road in a bid to evade capture.<\/p>\n
It is alleged the Commodore turned into Rhodes Ave and struck a speed hump, causing Ajouz to lose control of the vehicle and spear into three parked cars.<\/p>\n
During his arrest, Ajouz allegedly told police \u201cI\u2019m dumb, I was just being an idiot\u201d, and said \u201cI genuinely don\u2019t know\u201d when asked why he\u2019d failed to stop.<\/p>\n
Ajouz was taken to Granville Police Station, where he was charged with engaging in a police pursuit.<\/p>\n
He was granted conditional bail.<\/p>\n
In court on Thursday, defence lawyer Mohammad Algalele, from Sydney Triumph Lawyers, revealed his client would attempt to have the charge dismissed under mental health legislation.<\/p>\n
Under section 14 of the Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act, a judge can make an order dismissing a charge if they are satisfied the person was suffering from a mental health impairment or cognitive impairment at the time.<\/p>\n
Ajouz attempted to hide his face from the media as he left the courthouse in the company of his lawyer and a friend.<\/p>\n
The case will return to court in August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Sydney driver accused of leading police on a high-speed chase in Guildford before spectacularly crashing into three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[208748,208743,208744,208750,103,61,60,143238,410,208747,59858,411,208746,208745,208752,208751,208749,176019],"class_list":["post-485354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-conditional-bail","tag-defence-lawyer","tag-fronts-court","tag-granville-police-station","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-media-outlets","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-impairment","tag-mental-health-legislation","tag-mentalhealth","tag-parked-cars","tag-parramatta-courthouse","tag-police-car","tag-police-chase","tag-police-pursuit","tag-speed-limit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}