Nathan Owen jailed for faking brake failure on M57 and M58 motorways
Owen claimed his Jaguar's brakes failed while driving at speeds up to 86mph, leading to a police pursuit
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Nathan Owen jailed for faking brake failure on M57 and M58 motorways
Photograph: The Independent (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Nathan Owen, 33, was jailed for falsely claiming his Jaguar’s brakes failed during a high-speed drive on 6 March 2024.
- Owen reached speeds of up to 86mph on the M57 and M58 motorways while reporting the alleged malfunction to police.
- Footage from Merseyside Police shows one police vehicle being struck 31 times during the pursuit.
- No centre- or right-rated outlets reported the story, according to the digests available.
Nathan Owen, 33, was sentenced for falsely reporting a brake failure in his Jaguar while driving at speeds up to 86mph on the M57 and M58 motorways on 6 March 2024. Owen contacted Merseyside Police to claim his vehicle was uncontrollable, prompting a pursuit involving multiple police cars.
Footage released by Merseyside Police shows Owen’s Jaguar being driven alongside police vehicles during the incident. One police car was struck 31 times. The force described Owen’s speeds as "extreme" in the digests of the reports.
What the coverage left out
No centre- or right-rated digests carried the story. The omission is established only from the digests available, which do not include full reports from those outlets.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
- The two left-rated digests, both from The Independent, led on Owen’s false claim of a brake malfunction as part of a "financial ploy". Both included the detail that Owen reached speeds of up to 86mph and that one police vehicle was hit 31 times during the pursuit. The digests also noted the release of police footage showing the incident.
Centre
We hold no leaning breakdown for this story, so there is nothing to report about the centre.
Right
We hold no leaning breakdown for this story, so there is nothing to report about the right.
Questions about this coverage
- Is the coverage of Nathan Owen jailed for faking brake failure on M57 and M58 motorways biased?
- Nathan Owen jailed for faking brake failure on M57 and M58 motorways is one event reported by several outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- What did Nathan Owen do?
- Nathan Owen falsely claimed his Jaguar’s brakes had failed while driving at speeds up to 86mph on the M57 and M58 motorways on 6 March 2024. He reported the alleged malfunction to Merseyside Police, leading to a pursuit where one police vehicle was struck 31 times.
- Which outlets reported the story?
- The story was reported by two left-rated outlets, The Independent and The Independent (US), according to the digests available. No centre- or right-rated digests carried the story, though full reports from those outlets may exist.
- What evidence did police release?
- Merseyside Police released footage showing Owen’s Jaguar being driven alongside police vehicles during the pursuit. The footage captures one police car being struck 31 times, as described in the digests.
Read it at the source
2 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
2- Driver calls 999 while speeding in Jaguar and claims brakes have stopped working (opens The Independent (US) in a new tab)
The Independent (US) — is The Independent (US) biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Driver calls 999 while speeding in Jaguar and claims brakes have stopped working (opens The Independent in a new tab)
The Independent — is The Independent biased? Our profile of this outlet
Centre
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Right
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Not rated
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
