A BURGLAR fleeing the police was killed when he ran across a road, straight into the path of a taxi, Newport coroner's court heard.

Robert Charles Cushing, aged 25, from Gellihaf, near Blackwood, had broken into the Caerphilly council social services building in William Street, Gilfach, Bargoed, along with his accomplice, Craig Bates, on December 8, 2000, the inquest heard yesterday.

PCs Michelle Morris and Steven White were called to the scene at around 10.30pm and spotted Mr Cushing, who fled down an alleyway leading to Park Place.

As PC Morris chased him, she saw him run across the road, narrowly avoiding one car, but then he was struck by a red Ford Mondeo taxi.

"He didn't stop or pause at the pavement at all," she said. "He just ran straight out and almost instantaneously he was hit by a car."

Michael Llewellyn Richard Rees, the Mondeo driver, said: "I saw a person dive from the back of a parked vehicle on to the windscreen of my car. I don't think he even hit my bonnet. I heard a loud bang and my windscreen shattered. It frightened me to death."

Mr Cushing was then thrown against a parked car, landing with his head against the kerb with blood pouring from his head and ears.

PC Morris called for an ambulance, while other officers at the scene covered him with towels as he lay unconscious and breathing shallowly.

Another driver, Thomas Nutt, stopped to offer his first-aid kit. He said: "He looked in awful shape and I thought he'd broken his neck."

However, when the ambulance arrived, Mr Cushing had no pulse and went into cardiac arrest.

Paramedics taking him to Prince Charles Hospital, in Merthyr Tydfil, resuscitated him, but he was pronounced dead at 11.30pm.

A post-mortem examination revealed he had died from a head injury.

It also found he was in the "toxic range" for a drug called Dehydrocodeine and had Diazepam in his system, a combination which would have caused drowsiness and delayed reaction.

The jury hearing the inquest returned a verdict of death by misadventure.