A 24-year-old Paphos man has been arrested after running into a pole while trying to escape the police.

While traffic police were carrying out checks on Saturday afternoon they signalled for a driver to stop. Instead he sped up and started driving dangerously in his attempt to flee, police said.

At one point he lost control of the car and ended up hitting a traffic light pole.

As he was trying to flee, the 24-year-old was seen throwing five plastic bags out of the car window which had 3.5g of methamphetamines and 4.7g of cannabis.

He was then subjected to a drugs test which came out positive, while he was also found to be driving a car that had been registered as off the road, without a licence and without insurance.