Underage driver admits to taking grandmother’s car

A minor who fled a police check in Paphos early on Thursday morning later went to a police station to admit to driving his grandmother’s car without her permission, the Cyprus News Agency reported.

The incident was reported to the police after officers who were patrolling Eleftherios Venizelos Avenue early on Thursday spotted a car with three passengers parked on the left side of the road. When they approached the vehicle for a check, the driver started the engine and left the scene at a high speed.

A police patrol car, sirens blaring, pursued them for ten minutes, signalling to the driver to stop. However, the driver accelerated and driving recklessly and dangerously, ran several red lights. Police said the car also entered the adjacent traffic lane “endangering drivers of other vehicles”.

At some point officers lost the car from their sight, and they found it at around 2am parked outside a private clinic in the area.

Using the license plates number, police traced the owner of the car, a 71-year-old woman from Geroskipou who said she was not driving the car and had not given it to anyone else so it must have been stolen.

On Thursday morning, the minor who was driving the car, visited the police station with his father and admitted to the offence.

The minor is the grandchild of the car’s owner. In the car with him were two friends.