A MAN was due before magistrates today following a bus chase across two counties which resulted in crash.Police chased a stolen bus across Essex and Suffolk before its driver abandoned the vehicle to crash into a lamppost.

A MAN was due before magistrates today following a bus chase across two counties which resulted in crash.

Police chased a stolen bus across Essex and Suffolk before its driver abandoned the vehicle to crash into a lamppost.

But this was the drama that unfurled early on Saturday morning when a bus, believed to be a Route 66, was reported stolen from Queen's Street depot in Colchester.

Essex Police were called in to trace the bus beginning a chase that would eventually end in Norwich Road, Ipswich.

Suffolk Police were brought in to assist when the bus, a Dennis Dart single decker, was driven across the county border.

Officers made repeated attempts to stop the bus and arrest the driver as it made its way into Ipswich.

However, the chase only came to an end when the man behind the wheel jumped from the moving vehicle leaving the bus without a driver. It came to a stop when it crashed into a lamppost in Norwich Road at about 4am.

The driver ran from the scene. A man was arrested later.

Council engineers were called in to cut off the electricity to the lamppost as it leaned precariously towards a nearby house.