WATCH: High-speed Black Country police chase shown on dash-cam footage
Footage has been released showing the moment police dogs sniffed out two Black Country burglars after a high-speed chase.
Brothers Jamie and Callum Hopson were caught hiding in a scrapyard in Wolverhampton after being part of a four-strong gang that stole alcohol, cash and more than £1,000 worth of tobacco from a newsagents.
Video footage of the dramatic police pursuit, including when the gang threw bottles and metal at the chasing officers, and the moment the Hopsons were caught has been shared after the gang were locked up this week.
The chase started when traffic cops spotted the stolen Ford Fiesta the burglars had used as their getaway car in Sedgley town centre.
Police followed the car onto Tipton Street where it hit speeds of 100mph in a 30 zone and then onto Birmingham New Road, keeping up with the Fiesta as one of the passengers threw missiles at them.
WATCH the video here:
Driver Morgan McTaggart reached speeds of 100mph in 30mph zones, drove on the wrong side of a dual carriageway and eventually dumped the car on Anchor Lane in Bilston.
McTaggart, 20, was Tasered and detained near the car along with 18-year-old Ashley Greatrex but the Hopson brothers fled and climbed a fence into a nearby scrapyard.
The brothers tried to lie low among the scrapped vehicles but were eventually tracked down by Police Dog Pancho.
Body-cam footage shows how the two-year-old Belgian Malinois, searched through the rows of stacked vehicles before jumping up on the bonnet of one car signalling to handler Pc Dan Benton that someone was inside.
Callum Hopson, now 21, emerged moments later and pretended he was a child aged 13 despite being a 20-year-old man who had been arrested several times in the past.
His 26-year-old brother crawled from his hiding place shortly afterwards.
Pc Benton said: “She tracked a scent from the fencing into the yard. There must have been around 100 cars in there but she was paying particular attention to one row.
“I couldn’t see anything but she was insistent. Pancho jumped on the bonnet of one of the cars and started indicating at the door. That’s when I spotted a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a pile of car seats.
“It was all Pancho’s work she sniffed them out."
Earlier that morning the four burglars had broken into Kings Newsagents in Willenhall and made off with more than £1,000 worth of tobacco plus alcohol and cash.
The getaway car used in the burglary on November 11 last year had been stoeln from Murdock Drive in Kingswinford four days earlier.
All four men pleaded guilty to burglary.
McTaggart also admitted aggravated vehicle taking and driving while disqualified, while Jamie Hopson admitted taking the Ford Fiesta without consent and driving while disqualified
The four men were sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday.
McTaggart, of Stow Heath Lane, Wolverhampton, was jailed for two years and 10 months.
Jamie Hopson, from Wolverhampton but of no fixed address, was jailed for two and a half years.
Callum Hopson, of Vaughan Road, Willenhall, was jailed for two years and three months.
Greatrex, of Lunt Road, Bilston, was jailed for 15 months.
