Former Arsenal player Anthony Stokes arrested after second high-speed police chase
1 February 2023, 14:28 | Updated: 1 February 2023, 14:46
Former Premier League footballer Anthony Stokes has been charged with dangerous driving following a high-speed car chase, just weeks after being arrested for the first time for the same offence.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
Stokes, who was on Arsenal's books between 2005 and 2007, but only played one League Cup game before moving on, was arrested after an alleged police chase in Dublin in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The former Irish international, 34, has been charged with dangerous driving and failure to provide a sample when required.
It comes only a few weeks after Stokes, a former striker, was arrested following a short car chase.
Police said £4,000 of suspected cocaine was found in the vehicle.
He is due to appear before Dun Laoghaire District Court for both charges on Friday.
Stokes is accused of driving his Volkswagen Golf away from police and speeding through red lights in a bid to escape.
He then allegedly came to a stop at a roundabout about 20 minutes later.
This is not the first time Stokes, who turned out nearly 200 times for Celtic, has been in trouble with the law.
He was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for two years for a "nasty, cowardly attack" on a Dublin car park attendant in 2013, in which he broke the man's nose and teeth.
Stokes pleaded guilty in 2019 to stalking his ex-girlfriend and her mother, getting an eight-month deferred prison sentence.
A further assault charge for allegedly headbutting someone in Dublin in January last year was dropped when a witness failed to appear.
Stokes had a journeyman football career. After leaving Arsenal in 2007, he went to Sunderland for two years, making 38 appearances.
He found his feet at Celtic in 2010, where he played 191 times, before moving onto Hibernian in 2015 and Blackburn in 2016.
He later played in Iran, Greece and Turkey before coming back to Scotland, where he finished his playing career in 2020. Stokes gained nine caps for the Republic of Ireland.
