POLICE were still looking for a man on Wednesday night after a wild and frantic chase crossing two states and lasting more than six hours proved fruitless.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The pursuit, involving police from multiple area commands, began in Victoria at Benalla, shortly before 10.30am Wednesday.
The vehicle then travelled along the Hume Highway at high speed before reaching Albury about 11.30am.
The driver of the vehicle then refuelled without paying and fled northbound on the Olympic Highway towards Wagga.
Police reports indicated the Queensland-registered Nissan, believed stolen, hit speeds close to 200 km/h at various stages during the chase.
Wagga police committed several patrol cars to stopping the gold X-Trail to then call off the pursuit as it neared residential streets in the city after 1.30pm.
Police believed there was a male driver, a female passenger and what appeared to be a third male passenger in the vehicle.
During the pursuit, Wagga police recovered several items that were thrown from a window.
The chase was brought to a halt by police when the vehicle veered to the wrong side of the road, endangering motorists and pedestrians.
The X-Trail then fled out of Wagga on the Coolamon Road before stopping at Marrar.
Once again, the driver was able to refuel without paying before dashing north towards Temora.
Collette Wallace, the owner of Marrar Sales and Service, said there was little staff could do to stop the vehicle.
"They were in a definite hurry," she said.
"In the context of what it was, they filled up and just left."
Ms Wallace said a CCTV camera was rolling while the petrol was stolen at Marrar.
Wagga police later handed over control of the chase to Cootamundra as the vehicle continued towards Temora, Young and Cowra.
From there, about 4pm, Polair - the police helicopter that assists ground crews - was called in.
The last confirmed sighting of the vehicle was in Blayney, 30 minutes from Bathurst, late on Wednesday afternoon.
Police said on Wednesday night said the current location of the vehicle was unknown.
- Blair Thomson, Border Mail
Border road workers were forced to leap out of the path of a car which reached speeds close to 200km/h while involved in a police pursuit on Wednesday which covered several hundred kilometres between Benalla and southern NSW.
The vehicle had first come to the attention of police on the Hume Freeway at Benalla at about 10.50am after another motorist contacted them.
The Queensland-registered vehicle, which police believed was stolen, had three people on board, reportedly a male driver, another man and a woman.
By 5pm yesterday, the Nissan had travelled at least 500km over six hours through Wodonga, Albury, Wagga, Temora, Young and Cowra, stopped several times for fuel including at Kookaburra Point near Lake Hume.
Joey Delphin of Riverina Traffic Services was directing traffic on the northbound lane of Table Top Road at Table Top when the vehicle came “pumping through” at an estimated 140km/h.
“I put my stop bat out in front of me for him to stop,” Mr Delphin said.
“Another fella said he wasn’t going to stop.
“He went flying through.
“I would have been one to two metres away from him.
“There would have been about eight of us at the site and they all jumped off the road.”
Catherine Murray had earlier served the female passenger from the car at the Kangaroo General Store at Kookaburra Point, unaware police had been seeking the vehicle and its driver.
“I was just distracted by the girl who came in, she tried to pay for drinks with a card and it was declined,” she said.
“It wasn’t until she went back out to the car that I noticed it was leaving without them paying for fuel.”
The woman was captured on security cameras and the vehicle had been filled with fuel worth $91 before the driver headed towards Lake Hume.
Police took copies of the footage and Ms Murray described the woman as young, aged in her 20s, and “a bit rough around the edges”.
During the pursuit those in the vehicle had thrown gumboots, a headrest and a sun visor from the vehicle.
Sgt Andrew Wilson of Wodonga police said there were concerns for both the safety of the public and those in the Nissan during the pursuit.
“Those sorts of speeds are ridiculous and it puts members of the public at risk, and themselves,” he said.
“We tried a variety of ways to ensure the situation could be resolved, but it continued into NSW.”
Sgt Wilson said the speed of the vehicle had varied during the pursuit.
Officers from several Victorian police stations met at Wodonga yesterday afternoon to attend a debrief as their NSW officers continued to try to track down the vehicle.
