Police found man ‘hiding under bushes’ after chase

A MAN charged with attempted rape was found by police officers hiding under bushes with his trousers unbuttoned, a court heard.

Officers arrested Shi Fu Ni, 23, after a five-minute chase through residential streets in a Huntingdonshire village in the early hours of November 9 last year.

Pc Andy Savidge told a jury at Cambridge Crown Court on Thursday that when he was arrested, Ni’s trousers were “unfastened, with the button undone, the zip down and open.”

He and Pc Christopher Down had attended a restaurant near St Ives at about 5.30am after a call from a woman reporting an attack.

Ni had allegedly tried to strangle his friend Le Lin with electrical cable after Mr Lin had intervened in an attempted rape on the woman.

Ni denies charges of attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent against Mr Lin, and charges of attempted rape and sexual assault against the woman.

Pc Savidge said that when the two officers arrived at the premises, they saw through the window a man trying to escape from the back of the building, and gave chase.

He said: “We repeatedly called out for him to stop as we were police, but that had no effect.

“We were running as fast as we could at the time. We were making very little ground on the gent.”

The officers eventually located Ni under bushes, with one training a taser upon him while the other officer made the arrest.

Pc Savidge added: “He was lying on his front underneath the shrubbery trying to do his best to hide from us.”

Pc Savidge told the court that at the time of his arrest Ni was “heavily intoxicated, bloodshot and speaking very slurred, broken English.” He said that Ni had vomited several times.

In a statement read to the court, Pc Down described how he searched the restaurant and found the woman and Mr Lin, who was lying at the bottom of the stairs with ligature marks around his neck and blood dripping from his mouth.

The case continues.