A teenager was hit by a car as he tried to cross the A3 during a police chase and car crash in Tolworth.

The 16-year-old was hit as he made off along the A3 after a dramatic police pursuit sparked by a robbery a few hours earlier.

Despite his injuries, the man tried to keep running for a short distance until police finally caught up with him and kept him on the ground.

Police said the chain of events started at about 6pm on Wednesday, January 11, in Kingston Road, New Malden, with a robbery.

A witness took down the registration of a car believed to be involved, which police later identified as a Honda Civic stolen in Kent the previous day.

Officers then spotted a car matching that description in New Malden at 8.55pm, and followed it in Tolworth.

People were alerted to the unfolding incident when a police helicopter joined the chase, and police cars and vans with sirens blazing headed to the scene.

One witness, who did not want to be named, said the car drove to the end of Windsor Avenue and entered a footpath running along the edge of the Supreme Bowling Club, and came out in Woodies Lane before crashing into a front garden.

Two people were in the car, but one of them ran on to the A3 and was later hit by another vehicle.

He ended up at the junction of Warren Drive North and Lyndhurst Avenue, where police kept him on the ground and wrapped him in a foil sheets before paramedics arrived at 10pm.

He was taken to hospital, where police said he had non-life threatening injuries.

A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service said: “We were called just after 9.30pm to reports of a road traffic accident involving a pedestrian and a car in Lyndhurst Avenue. We sent a single responder and an ambulance crew.

“Staff treated a 16-year-old boy for back and knee injuries and he was taken as a priority to Kingston Hospital.”

* Two men, aged 16 and 18, have been arrested on suspicion of aggravated taking and driving away and robbery.