It ranks as one of the oddest police chases ever recorded.

When two bobbies on the beat received a distress call from a colleague on the other side of town, they did not have a squad car at their disposal to race to the scene - so they commandeered two rickshaws instead.

The officers spotted the pedicabs lumbering down the streets of Hereford, and asked them to stop. Suddenly, out of nowhere, drivers Ben Matthews and Will Vaughan were on one of the strangest rides of their careers.

Mr Matthews took the two PCs in the back of his cab while Mr Vaughan rode as an outrider. As the ride hotted up, the pair rang their bells to clear the road of traffic - while one of the officers, PC Sue Beament, made siren noises.

Arriving at the scene in the Castle Green area of the town, the duo got their man. The suspect, who had been resisting arrest as a fellow PC tried to detain them, was remanded in custody over an assault and breaching bail conditions.

"Ben and I had just done a multiple drop off. Imagine my surprise when, as I came down the hill, I saw two police officers in the back of Ben's cab with Ben going like the clappers as they pointed to a distant figure," Mr Vaughan wrote, as he recounted his extraordinary adventure on his blog mulesforthemasses.blogspot.com

"Not holding back, I rounded the corner at full speed with a motorbike sidecar lean so as not to tip the bike.

"Soon Ben and I were closing the gap on the bad guys. I took the lead with Ben pulling the officer.

"We're fairly new to crime fighting, but like to imagine ourselves as cowboys riding down the bad guys.

"The next few minutes were a blur of fluro jackets, sweaty riders, and panicking criminals, but as I'm sure you can guess we got our man. Unbelievable."

Explaining why hiring a rickshaw had seemed like a good idea, PC Anne-Marie Rosier said it had been an instinctive reaction.

“We knew that if we ran the distance it may take too long, and when we arrived we probably would not have been in the best condition to help out our colleagues – so when the pedicabs turned up we used out initiative and hopped on board.”

PC Beament added: "They were ringing their bells to warn people we were coming. I even tried making a siren noise myself, but the bells were far more effective."

A West Mercia Police spokesman added that the force had given the rickshaw drivers a "healthy tip" for their trouble.

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