That picture above comes from The Italian Job, which showed some crafty criminals at the top of their game.

A warning to all would-be copycats, though: while either version of The Italian Job might, for some reason, be your all-time favourite movie, that does not mean that you should attempt to reenact various scenes in real life.

Especially if you’re planning to commit a real crime.

In the 1969 version, starring Michael Caine, MINIs take stairs, tunnels and rooftops in Turin, Italy, to get away from police. But in the UK’s Northumbria region, police were less easy to lose.

In fact, they had to be called in.

At around 11:30PM on Monday, police received a call that a vehicle and its driver were stuck halfway down a public stairway in Morpeth’s Carlisle Park, reports The Telegraph:

A far cry from the success of the famous stair-driving scene, below:

After police arrived and assessed the situation, emergency services were called in and soon the driver was freed from the red MINI.

Thankfully, he wasn’t injured during the incident, but enquiries into what happened soon led to police to realise that the 31-year-old man had stolen the vehicle.

Arrested, he now remains in police custody.

The MINI, with Union flag branding on its roof, was stuck in this awkward position all morning, prompting those passing to stop and take pictures:

I mean, if he wanted to recreate the famous scenes from The Italian Job, he could have just bought himself a MINI Cooper, and found a wider path to drive down, surely? I guess it’s all part of the adventure.

Although the thief’s choice was a 16-year-old MINI Cooper S, if you decide that the MINI Clubman is a better version for driving down stairs (please don’t), you have until the end of this month to make the jump.

Why? Because, opening the door to style and sophistication, MINI wants to spoil you with a free premium TAG Heuer watch valued at R25 000.

Read more about that here.

Oh, and if you email Seth, ask him to point you in the right direction and he can hook you up with a discount.

Smooth criminal style.

[source:thetelegraph]