A half-naked suspected shoplifter dropped clothes and a frozen chicken during a city centre chase.

The bare-chested man was chased along Market Street, Turl Street, Broad Street and into New College Lane, Oxford, where he was eventually pinned down.

Passer-by Malcolm Long, of Abingdon Road, who saw the commotion, said: "Stuff was strewn all over the road - including a frozen chicken and various clothes, jeans and that sort of thing."

He described the chase as "quite dramatic."

"At first I wondered what the clothes and frozen chicken were doing on the road," he told the Oxford Mail.

"All the tourists were looking at it.

"The butcher came and got the chicken back out of the road.

"I didn't know what was going on until I got round the corner and neither did the tourists."

Mr Long said that at first, some of the tourists had gone to pick up the chicken but had been stopped by the butcher.

Mr Long said he saw the would-be shoplifter pinned down by two men, whom he took to be store detectives, in New College Lane.

Mr Long said: "He didn't put up a struggle.

"He was face down and one man was sitting on him."

An Oxford police spokesman said an alleged shoplifter was arrested outside New College.

He was being questioned at St Aldate's Police station.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.