Police dealing with a fight outside a pub were left with a bigger problem on their hands as their Land Rover rolled away down a hill and in through the window of an amusement arcade.

It happened between 12.30am and 1am on Sunday morning. Drinkers in the Folkestone Wetherspoons pub - the Samuel Peto - watched as the events unfolded.

Tom Weatherley was enjoying his pint when he became aware of a scuffle on the steps of the Rendezvous Street pub.

He said: “A couple of lads had a bit of a set to at the bottom of the steps outside and at just the right moment a police 4x4 came round the corner as if to go up to the town. Of course they immediately stopped and both policemen jumped out.

“The jeep then rolled backwards down the hill, somehow swinging left around the temporary wall for the building site and crashed straight through one of the windows of the Amusements Palace.

“It is worth adding that one of the officers successfully broke up the fight.”

Meanwhile, residents at the block of flats opposite, known as Merchants Place, got a rude awakening.

Advertising manager Lee Hutton, 34, said: “I had just gone to bed at about midnight when I was woken up by a huge crash. I looked out of the bedroom window, and saw that a police Land Rover seemed to have reversed straight through the front of the amusement arcade.

“It looked like a ram raid. The arcade’s alarm went off, and lots of passers-by came to have a look at what was going on."

Passers-by overheard one of the policemen blaming the handbrake for failing and it wasn’t long before a police van and two squad cars turned up.

A spokesman for Kent Police said: “While police officers were dealing with a disturbance in Rendezvous Street, Folkestone early on Sunday morning, a marked police vehicle was involved in a collision with an Amusement Arcade. The vehicle was recovered for examination and the incident is being investigated.”