The first-ever Big Brother winner has revealed to MailOnline how he became trapped behind the wheel of his £76,000 Jaguar I-Pace while his wife and two young children were in the car after the brakes stopped working.
TV personality Craig Phillips, 52, is the latest electric vehicle driver to come forward with a horror story about being ‘kidnapped’ by a runaway car.
He revealed how within days of having his Jaguar returned from the manufacturer for a separate issue, he was unable to use his brakes as he approached a red light with two cars in front of him and traffic coming towards him in the opposite lane.
Mr Phillips feared that he was going to crash the car which had his two children, aged three and five, on car seats in the back, and his wife Laura Sherriff, 37, in the passenger seat as the family ventured out for a meal on New Year’s Eve.
He told MailOnline: ‘I can’t describe to you what a terrifying feeling that was when the two children are in the back. The more I pushed down, the more it forced up, and the car carried on rolling.’
Mr Phillips, who won the first series of Channel 4‘s Big Brother in 2000, said he was fortunate that the lights changed from red to green and the two cars in front pulled away.
‘Otherwise I would have collided with them,’ he added. ‘There was no way of stopping. I had no options, I either mount the curb, run into the back of them or go into the lane coming towards me.’
Craig Phillips is pictured with his wife Laura and their two children, Lennon, 3, and Nelly, 5
Big Brother winner Craig Phillips’s Jaguar I-Pace, in which he became trapped behind the wheel after the brakes stopped working
Mr Phillips purchased his Jaguar for £76,000 in March 2020 – but has faced a number of issues. Here, his Jaguar is being taken away in the days after his brakes stopped working
It comes amid growing concerns over the safety of electric cars and follows another Jaguar I-Pace driver getting stuck behind the wheel as his EV raced up to 100mph on the busy M62 motorway on Tuesday.
And last October, another EV driver was kidnapped by his runaway £30,0000 MG ZS.
Still shaken up from the incident on New Year’s Eve, Mr Phillips revealed how he had just had his car repaired and delivered to him at his home in Rainhill, Merseyside, over Christmas.
He continued: ‘Four or five days later, I’d done about 50 to 60 miles on it, all local around my village, a quiet little village, driving away and it’s New Year’s Eve now.
‘We’re on the way to a restaurant to have some dinner, we’ve got the two kids in the back of the car, a three-year-old and a five-year-old in the car seats. Laura’s in the front with me, my wife.
‘And as I come driving towards the traffic lights, which were on red, two cars in front of me, as I braked, all of a sudden, it was like the hydraulic brake was pushing back on me.’
Mr Phillips, also known for TV appearances on ITV’s 60 Minute Makeover, said he was lucky because he had slowed down from around 40mph to 20mph because of the red light.
But he added: ‘I forced my whole body weight on it. And it was pushing me up. I’ve driven for 30-odd years, and I’ve driven many old vans where the brakes have gone.
‘Now normally, if a brake fails in a car or a van, it’s the hydraulics that have seized or the hydraulic pipe burst and you can still physically push down on the brake very hard, which would slow it down and stop it.
‘I’ve experienced that four or five times in the past with old builder’s vans, but this was the complete opposite. This was like the hydraulic pushing my foot up.’
Craig Phillips said he was unable to use the brakes on his Jaguar as he approached a red light
Craig Phillips leaves the Big Brother house after walking away with the £70,000 prize on September 15, 2000
Fortunately, the two cars pulled away which allowed Mr Phillips to turn into a quieter road and after about 30 metres the brakes cut back in and the vehicle came to a stop.
Mr Phillips, who bought the car brand new in March 2020, explained: ‘My wife was just looking at me really shocked and she asked ‘could you not brake then?’
‘She could see my whole body stiffen up as I pressed my body weight on it. And I said ‘No I literally could not stop the car’. It was free wheeling and it was pushing the brake back up on my leg.’
The couple decided that they could not continue onto the restaurant which was around 12 miles away and included motorways.
They instead slowly make their way back to the house, which was around a mile away, travelling at about 10 to 15mph.
But he added: ‘Just as I pulled into our house drive, it happened again. It happened where I had to brake, I was pushing my whole body weight and the car was just freewheeling and rolling forward, and then eventually come to a stop.’
Mr Phillips said he emailed Jaguar straight away and received an email a few days later asking him to bring it in to be looked at.
But he said he told them: ‘I’m certainly not going to drive it, it’s not safe’ and I put it in writing to them to say I wouldn’t advise one of your staff even to come and drive it because from our house to Hatfield, you have to go on two motorways.
‘I said it needs to be picked up, it needs to be transported. And their response was ‘we don’t have a transporter, we don’t have that service’.’
‘I said ‘what, seriously, Jaguar don’t have that service?’ I felt I was being fobbed off.’
Mr Phillips claims he has faced a number of technical issues since splashing out almost £80,000 on the EV.
Craig Phillips is pictured with his wife Laura and their two children, Lennon, 3, and Nelly, 5
This included the car not fully charging or rapid charging, which meant he kept breaking down on the motorway. On one occasion, he had to fork out £350 for a taxi home to Merseyside after the car conked out in the Midlands.
Then last summer, with the car having only done 22,000 miles, the boot stopped working and slammed down on his wife’s head.
Mr Phillips took the car in for repairs and also told Jaguar that the carpets were wet inside and it was starting to smell. But he became embroiled in a row with the manufacturer over them trying to charge him £3,900.
He claimed they admitted to him that his issue was likely with how the windscreen had been fitted – and that three other vehicles were on the forecort for the same reason.
Mr Phillips said he told them: ‘This is not acceptable. You’ve told me there’s a fault with the windscreens. You told me there’s three of them sitting on your forecourt as we speak, waiting for new windscreens with the same issue.’
He also told them: ‘This is clearly a manufacturer’s problem and you can’t expect me to pay for it.’
Mr Phillips then opened a complaint and persevered with the car for a month or two but the problems persisted and Jaguar eventually covered the repair costs.
The repaired car was then returned to him but days later, he had the terrifying incident on New Year’s Eve.
Craig Phillips is pictured with his wife Laura and their two children, Lennon, 3, and Nelly, 5
Mr Phillips has been locked in a row with the car manufacturer since and claimed it told him that he had to get the faulty car to them himself, and it would cost £210 to diagnose because his warranty had expired after three years.
He told MailOnline: ‘I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna stop my payment. I’m not willing to pay for a vehicle that’s unfit for purpose. And I deem it as unsafe’.’
Mr Phillips claims that he was told his credit rating would be impacted by not paying so he contacted Blackhorse, who financed his Jaguar.
The Big Brother star says he feels he has been ‘horrifically ill-treated’ and has not had a car for around two months because it is still on their drive.
Last week, however, he received an email to say his car was ready for collection. But Mr Phillips and his partner say they will not be getting back in the vehicle.
‘My wife’s just like ‘we are not putting our children back into an I-Pace, full stop’. Even if they deliver it to my door, we’re not going to drive it. Take it back. So we’re done with Jaguar.’
Craig Phillips is known for winning the first series of Channel 4 ‘s Big Brother in 2000
A Jaguar Land Rover spokesman said: ‘We are taking these claims by Mr Phillips very seriously and are looking into his complaint. Our client experience as well as the safety of our clients and vehicles is JLR’s highest priority.’
Just on Tuesday, a driver who was trapped behind the wheel of another out-of-control Jaguar I-Pace revealed how he cheated death as his car accelerated up to 100mph on the busy M62 motorway without brakes.
Nathan Owen, 31, was on his way back from his first day at a new job when his 2019 electric car started malfunctioning, sparking a huge police operation to bring his car to a stop after 35 minutes of hell.
But he told how his car had also gone rogue on the motorway in December, this time reaching up to 120mph. He claims Jaguar handed him his car back 24 hours after he had taken it in to be looked at.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline about his latest run-in, the crisis support worker admitted: ‘In the back of my mind, I was thinking I’m going to end up crashing the car, I’m going to kill myself or I’m going to kill an innocent person on the roads.’
Mr Owen, originally from North Wales, added: ‘The car was in its own world – it just had no brakes. The worst thing about it is that it’s happened before.’
Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed it is investigating Tuesday’s incident as a priority.
Nathan Owen required a police convoy to bring him to a stop on the M62 motorway on Tuesday
He eventually had to bang into the back of a police car so that his vehicle would stop moving
In relation to this incident, a Jaguar Land Rover spokeswoman said: ‘Following the incident involving a Jaguar I-Pace on the M62 on the afternoon of March 6, we are looking into this matter with urgency.
‘A full review is underway to determine the cause of this incident, which is still yet to be established. The safety of our clients and vehicles is JLR’s highest priority.’
But Mr Owen and Mr Phillips were not alone in their experience.
Just last year, a terrified electric car driver revealed he was kidnapped by his runaway £30,000 MG ZS EV after the vehicle suffered a ‘catastrophic malfunction’ in a bizarre case which forced him to dodge red lights and roundabouts before calling police to ram it into their van.
Brian Morrison, 53, claims he was heading home from work at around 10pm on Sunday when his new Chinese-made fully electric car began driving itself at 30mph.
Unable to use the brakes, the Glaswegian – who runs his own social enterprise – called police who stopped the vehicle by allowing it to slowly crash into their van.
Motoring commentator Stuart Masson, editorial director at The Car Expert, told MailOnline that there seemed to be a ‘systemic problem’ with the Jaguar I-Pace, but it was important not to generalise the issue across all EVs.
He said: ‘This is not an EV issue, it’s a Jaguar issue. The company clearly has a problem with this model, but that doesn’t mean that every other car company needs to be tarred with the same brush.
‘There are a million EVs on UK roads now, and this is the only model that seems to have a systemic problem.
‘There was one example of an MG, which may be a similar control issue and may even involve the same suppliers, but there are zero reported issues from Abarth, Audi, BMW, BYD, Citroen, Cupra, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Ford, Genesis, GWM Ora, Honda, Hyundai, Jeep, KGM/SsangYong, Kia, Lexus, Lotus, Maserati, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mini, Nissan, Peugeot, Polestar, Porsche, Renault, Rolls-Royce, Skoda, Smart, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota, Vauxhall, Volkswagen or Volvo.
‘Toyota had a massive problem of unintended acceleration on its petrol cars in the USA a couple of decades ago, which cost it millions in class action payments to victims. Audi had a similar issue in the US a couple of decades before that.’
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