‘Try the other side,’ he yelled to Abbott, but she was already on her way there.

‘This is stuck too,’ she called out after she failed to open it.

By now one of the patrol officers was at the back of the van and pulling open the rear doors. Luckily there was no divider panel between the storage section and the front seats, which meant he was able to scramble on board and get to Nash.

James jumped in with him while the other officer smothered the smoking engine with foam and stopped the whole thing going up in flames.

‘He’s alive,’ James announced after leaning close to Nash and hearing him breathe. ‘But it won’t be easy to get him out of here.’

They started by pulling back the seats, but they only went so far and Nash’s legs remained trapped under the dashboard.

‘If we’re not careful we’ll do more harm than good,’ James said. ‘Find out how quickly the firefighters can get here and warn them they’ll need to perform an extrication.’

While they waited James climbed into the passenger seat next to Nash and used a first aid kit provided by Abbott to tend to his facial injuries.

He wiped away the blood and kept assuring Nash that the rescue services were about to arrive.

At one point the man’s eyes flickered open briefly and he let out a groan, but he did not regain full consciousness.

The ambulance arrived first and one of the paramedics took over. James got out of the van and stood with Abbott, who had been on her radio keeping the team updated.

‘I don’t think there’s any doubt that he tried to kill himself,’ James said to her.

She nodded. ‘So, he chose to die rather than face being questioned by us again.’

‘That’s how it looks,’ James said. ‘It probably means he won’t make it easy for us to save his life.’

When the firefighters arrived, they got straight to work on the van. It took them fifteen minutes to remove the driver’s side door and adjust the seat so that Nash could be released. As he was being placed on the stretcher James asked one of the paramedics if he was likely to live.

‘That all depends on how quickly we can get him to hospital and the trauma team can set to work,’ the paramedic replied. ‘It looks like he suffered a severe blow to the head when he hit the windscreen. We won’t know if there are any internal injuries until he’s been X-rayed. But I can tell you his right leg is broken and at least a couple of ribs are too.’

‘So where are you taking him?’

‘The Royal Lancaster Infirmary. It’s got the nearest accident and emergency department.’

James turned to Abbott and told her to go with them in the ambulance.