A Willaston resident was confronted by an axe-wielding driver who smashed into his backyard during a wild police chase.

It’s alleged the suspect used his weapon to break a window of the man’s car before officers stepped in.

Bruce Fletcher was watching TV when a car slammed through a fence.

“It was an unholy bang, I’ve never heard anything like it,” Fletcher said.

“It was like an explosion.

“The next thing, this bloke’s yelling out, ‘Shift your car, shift your car’.”

Just 45 minutes earlier, the man was seen driving away from plain-clothes police at Elizabeth East just after 7pm yesterday.

He was wanted for questioning over a service station robbery at Blakeview.

Police chased him through several suburbs before he became stuck in Fletcher’s yard.

“I said you can’t get out here, I said it’s got the roller door down.”

Fletcher then spotted the plain-clothes officers.

“I did breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.

“They dragged him out of the car and they squirted him with the hose.”

Police said they were forced to use capsicum spray because the man had tried to attack them with a small axe.

Fletcher said the same axe had been used to smash the windscreen of his car.

“I think he was trying to get into the car to shift it,” he said.

The man has been charged with a string of offences, including six counts of aggravated endangerment of life.

“He didn’t even say sorry or anything, he just couldn’t have cared less,” Fletcher said.