Suspected shoplifter hospitalised after falling 20ft from City of London shop window
The man was rushed to hospital with life threatening injuries
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A suspected shoplifter who fell from a second-storey shop window in front of shocked London workers, has been hospitalised with life-threatening injuries.
Police were called to the upmarket Royal Exchange shopping arcade in London’s financial district at around 10:30am on Monday, over reports a man was shoplifting in Gracechurch Street.
The 60-year-old man allegedly fled from police to another shop, before throwing a chair through a window and leaping to the ground.
Images from the scene showed a blood-stained pavement behind a police cordon put up outside a Molton and Brown store in the City of London.
Spokespeople from the City of London Police and the London Ambulance Service said the man was suffering from life threatening injuries to his head, and was rushed to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
Witnesses told the Evening Standard that the man caught his leg on the window ledge as he fell, causing him to backflip around 20ft through the air before landing on the street.
A City worker, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the newspaper: “Security or police were chasing him and he managed to get inside the shop and upstairs where he used the chair to smash the window of the shop.”
He added that as the man climbed out, he somersaulted and landed on his back. “He looked in a bad way to me,” the worker said.
Another local worker told The Telegraph: “Security or police were chasing him and he managed to get inside the shop and upstairs where he used the chair to smash the window of the shop.
“He started to climb out, but fell and somersaulted through the air where he landed on his back.”
A spokesman for the police said The Professional Standards Department have been informed, and the Independent Police Complaints Commission are independently investigating the incident.