Convicted knife attacker drove at cops during high speed chase

Police officers ‘feared for their lives’ after a convicted knife attacker rammed a riot van following a high-speed chase, a court heard.

Ahmed Mayroof, 28, had been out of jail for just nine weeks when police tried to pull him over after the theft of a Sat Nav in east London on March 2.

During the one-mile pursuit through the streets of Plaistow, he mounted the pavement, drove the wrong way down a one-way street and sped at 50mph past a hospital.

He twice reversed at speed into a police car in Elkington Road, writing it off, and then took a run up and rammed a riot van at 40mph – sending an officer flying through the air and causing �7,500 of damage.

Inner London Crown Court heard three police officers were injured in the episode - with one later requiring physiotherapy to treat a knee injury after he was ‘thrown violently’ to the ground.

At the time Mayroof was on licence after serving half of a four year sentence for knifing a cabbie repeatedly in the head, in Forest Gate, east London.

The thug plunged a screwdriver into 53-year-old Narinder Verma eight times leaving the victim to remark: ‘Life is so cheap, people will kill you for �10.’

Mr Verma was left for dead after the attack in 2008 and he defaulted on his mortgage after struggling to return to work.

Mayroof, of Downsell Road, Leyton, was jailed for two years and four months after admitting dangerous driving, criminal damage, resisting arrest and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He was also disqualified from driving for five years and told he would have to take an extended re-test if he applied for a licence after being released from prison.