On a brisk afternoon in early March 2024, the M62 motorway in northern England became the stage for a drama that could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood thriller. But the high-speed chase that unfolded was anything but fiction: it was a carefully orchestrated hoax by Nathan Owen, a 33-year-old support worker from Prestatyn, North Wales, who falsely claimed his electric Jaguar I-Pace had suffered a catastrophic brake failure. The story, which began with a panicked 999 call and ended with a dangerous police pursuit, would eventually unravel into one of the most audacious automotive fraud cases in recent British memory.
According to reporting from the Liverpool Echo and court documents, Owen’s deception began on March 6, 2024, as he drove home from his job in Ormskirk. He dialed emergency services, claiming that his Jaguar was accelerating out of control, with the brakes completely unresponsive. "I kept trying to press the brakes but nothing was happening," Owen later told Daily Mail reporters, painting a picture of terror as his car supposedly hurtled towards disaster. "In the back of my mind, I was thinking I'm going to end up crashing the car. I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to kill an innocent person."
Treating the call as a life-threatening emergency, Merseyside Police’s specialized Matrix unit sprang into action. What followed was a 35-minute, high-risk pursuit across the M58, M57, and M62 motorways, with Owen’s Jaguar reaching speeds as high as 86 mph. Dashcam footage released by police shows officers driving alongside Owen, their vehicles repeatedly struck—one police car was hit 31 times as they attempted to bring the Jaguar to a halt. The chase, which spanned 38 miles and crossed four counties, finally ended when police boxed in Owen’s vehicle between junction 11 for Birchwood and junction 12 at Eccles, physically forcing it to stop. The operation shut down vital lanes, causing substantial delays and putting the lives of motorists and officers at immediate risk.
But as the dust settled, cracks began to appear in Owen’s story. Forensic telemetry downloaded from the Jaguar’s internal computers revealed an inconvenient truth: the brakes were fully functional, and Owen was in complete control of the vehicle throughout the ordeal. The initial emergency call, it turned out, had been made while the car was stationary—five minutes after Owen had called his finance company and been denied a top-up loan. Prosecutor Eric Lamb told Liverpool Crown Court that Owen’s financial troubles had been mounting for months. After leaving his job as a teaching assistant in August 2023 and losing his probationary position at Swissport later that year, Owen was left struggling with missed payments on the Jaguar, which he had financed through CA Auto Finance UK in March 2023. He even asked a friend for advice on how to "get rid of his car and get away with it," to which the friend replied, "Make a crash look not your fault."
With mounting arrears and no way out, Owen concocted his elaborate scheme. He called 999 to report the fake emergency, then led police on the high-speed chase while texting his girlfriend—despite claiming to have no control over the car. After the incident, Owen wasted no time in profiting further from his deception: he sold exclusive interviews to The Sun and Daily Mail for a combined £800, telling the press he feared for his life as his car "went rogue." But the story he sold publicly didn’t match the facts. As BBC News reported, "What the court has now put on record is that the story he sold publicly did not match the call that started the police response."
The fallout was swift and severe. Jaguar Land Rover, the manufacturer of the I-Pace, was forced to launch an internal investigation and spend £50 million in marketing and customer incentives to counter the adverse publicity and restore consumer confidence. The company faced over 180 pieces of negative media coverage, and, according to court testimony, even saw a rise in copycat allegations as a result of Owen’s false claims. The investigation into the supposed vehicle fault cost an additional £10,000. For a company operating in a market where public trust in electric vehicles is still fragile, the damage was significant.
Owen’s fraudulent actions extended beyond the staged emergency. He made a false representation to CA Auto Finance, demanding a payout of £4,426.49 by claiming the car was lethally defective. The court heard that his actions were part of a sophisticated, planned fraud conducted over a sustained period. Judge Ian Unsworth KC, presiding over the case, did not mince words: Owen had "sought to profit from a lie" while putting the safety of police officers and the public in jeopardy. The judge described Owen as a "Walter Mitty character"—a daydreamer lost in fantasy, whose immaturity and poor judgment had led to a "perilous" situation. Despite pleas from Owen’s defense that he was well-educated, had no previous convictions, and posed no risk to the public, the court handed down a decisive sentence.
On August 3, 2026, Nathan Owen was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court to four years and three months in prison. He was also disqualified from driving for five years and must pass an extended driving test before he can get back behind the wheel. The sentence, as reported by Liverpool Echo and other outlets, was intended as a strong deterrent. As Judge Unsworth remarked, "The sentence closes the case around a false motorway emergency that became far more expensive than the £800 he received for telling it."
The case has broader implications for the rapidly expanding world of electric vehicles. As automotive technology becomes increasingly reliant on complex software systems, manufacturers face heightened reputational risks from unsubstantiated claims of electronic failure. This dynamic is not limited to the UK. In Kenya, for example, where the National Transport and Safety Authority is currently drafting new e-mobility safety frameworks, public trust is paramount. High-profile hoaxes like Owen’s can artificially suppress consumer confidence and delay vital transitions to cleaner transportation.
Owen’s story is a cautionary tale for the e-mobility era—a reminder that, while technology may be evolving, the age-old temptations of fraud and deception remain. For the police officers who risked their lives, the innocent motorists caught in the chaos, and the carmaker left to pick up the pieces, the cost of one man’s lie was all too real.