In the early hours of Sunday, 29th May at around 2:30 am, David Morris-Noakes, aged 17, heard the immense sound of a car alarm that followed shortly after a crashing sound. David believed it to have been his parents’ car and so he went to investigate and stop the car alarm.
Subsequently David then realised it wasn’t just his parents’ car that had been hit and noticed that his neighbour’s car had taken the worst of the damage.
David quickly ran into his parents’ bedroom, and shouted; “There has been a crash. Come quick. Phone the police.”
He then suddenly ran out of the house. The driver that had caused the incident had slowly started to drive away from the scene. Without thinking of his own safety, and only in his pyjamas, David chased the fleeing car barefoot.
As he reached the passenger side of the car, he opened the door and shouted at the driver to stop and get out. David explained to the driver that he shouldn’t be driving away from a crash. The driver mumbled in response, so David, without thinking, reached into the car and removed the keys from the ignition causing the car to come to a stop.
When it finally stopped, David asked the driver on several occasions to get out of the car and the driver did not comply. David pulled the driver out from behind the wheel and stood him on the pavement at the side of the road.
David then tried to contact the Police, however his phone and ipod had fallen from his pocket and broken during the chase. He then took the driver’s phone so that he could contact them, but the driver refused to provide David with the password.
David then held the phone up to the driver’s face so that the facial recognition would unlock the phone. David then contacted the Police and stayed with the driver until help arrived. David is normally shy and he usually wouldn’t leave his home or look at a stranger let alone talk to them, due to his autism.
“Don’t know whether to praise David or shake him. Either way I am proud of him,” David’s mother Charlotte expressed via social media.
“His quick thinking to stop the driver from getting away. Using the driver’s phone to contact the Police as his phone broke in pursuit, stopped this extremely drunk driver from fleeing the scene of the crime.
When the Police arrived and took over, David came back to the house where both my wife and I were standing and he was different. He seemed pleased that he had stopped this man from escaping, like a superhero. We explained that we were very proud of him but it was extremely dangerous because the driver could have potentially had a weapon and could have turned on David. David’s response to this was that he didn’t want the man to get away.”
