A Fabricated Emergency
Nathan Owen, a 33-year-old former teaching assistant, has been sentenced to four years and three months in prison at Liverpool Crown Court after orchestrating a dangerous and elaborate hoax on the M62 motorway. Owen claimed his Jaguar I-Pace had “gone rogue,” was accelerating uncontrollably, and that its braking system had failed, triggering a major multi-agency police response across three motorways.
The incident, which occurred on March 6, 2024, involved Cheshire, Merseyside, and Greater Manchester Police. Officers were forced to perform a high-stakes containment maneuver to stop the vehicle near junction 12 of the M62, putting themselves and other road users at significant risk. Investigations later confirmed the vehicle was fully functional and that Owen had been in complete control throughout the 38-mile ordeal, even texting his girlfriend while driving at high speeds.
Financial Motives and Fraud
The court heard that Owen’s actions were driven by mounting financial desperation. After losing his job and failing to secure a top-up loan, he sought to offload his finance-agreement Jaguar. Following a friend’s advice to “make a crash look not your fault,” he fabricated the mechanical failure. Beyond the immediate danger caused on the motorway, Owen furthered his fraud by selling the “exclusive” story to national newspapers for a total of £800 and attempting to deceive CA Auto Finance into writing off his remaining debt of over £4,400.
The fallout for the manufacturer was severe. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) reported that the false claims, which generated over 180 pieces of negative media coverage, forced the company to allocate £50 million in marketing and customer incentives to restore public confidence in the I-Pace model. Additionally, the company noted a rise in “copycat” allegations following the high-profile publicity of the case.
Sentencing and Accountability
Judge Ian Unsworth condemned the deception, noting that the incident abused the public trust essential for road safety. “The police officers who responded to your call acted with courage and professionalism. They placed themselves in danger because they believed that they were dealing with a genuine emergency,” the judge stated. In addition to his custodial sentence, Owen has been banned from driving for five years and must pass an extended driving test before being permitted to drive again.
Despite his defense team’s portrayal of him as an intelligent but immature “Walter Mitty” character living in a fantasy world, the court emphasized the deliberate and sophisticated nature of the fraud. The investigation, which involved technical data analysis by both police and JLR, proved that at no point during the incident did the defendant attempt to apply the brakes.