By Alf Roland
Chief Pan-Universal Correspondent

Top cop, Detective Chief Inspector Sam Tyler, 37, yesterday made a surprise announcement that he had traveled back in time to 1973 after a road traffic accident.

In an exclusive interview with the News of the Universes, DCI Sam Tyler spilled the beans on his amazing story. Beginning with a phrase he repeated several times during the interview: "My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Was I mad, in a coma, or back in time? It turns out it was all three."

DRUNK DRIVER
"It all began at Christmas. I'd gone down to London to search for my missing aunt and cousin. Suddenly, as I was crossing a major motorway on foot, I was hit by some maniac in an out of control Police Box! Next thing I know I wake up in 1973."

Investigations suggest the maniac driver in question was none other than the Doctor - the man that disgraced ex-PM Harriet Jones pleaded for on national TV a year ago. The News of the Universes is proud to still be offering a £1 million reward for information on this Doctor. Do not approach but instead call our 'I Found the Doctor' number.

COMATOSE COPPER
Sam Tyler: "I quickly realised I must be in a coma as I could hear the medical staff talk to me through the 1973 TV and radio. The freakiest show was the Open University, with the geeky look host talking directly to me as if he were my doctor. The best was certainly Top of the Pops, with my nurses playing the part of Pan's People..."

Tyler's neurological consultant, Frank Morgan, explained further: "We did try everything to communicate with Sam while he was in his coma, including having the nurses dance around his bed half naked. Nothing would rouse him."

LIFE ON MARS
Co-occupant of Hyde Ward, Dorothy Gale, just recovering from a similar coma, claims to have witnessed Tyler disappearing from his hospital bed as he wheezed and groaned. Hospital staff were at a loss to explain his disappearance. As ever, super top secret agency UNIT were quick to release a press statement claiming the incident was a mass hallucination brought about by a batch of bad eggs.

DCI Tyler explains what happened next: "My name is Sam Tyler. I had a little accident, I wet my hospital bed, and woke up on Mars. Was I mad or really surrounded by Martians pretending to be characters from Camberwick Green?"

COLD HUNT
According to top police shrink, Alex Drake, Sam Tyler experienced a character known only as Gene Hunt during his 1973 coma, who played the role of Tyler's gov. Psychological Profiler DCI Drake went on: "Sam imagined himself demoted to detective inspector, subservient to this Hunt that he described to me as 'An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, border-line alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding.'"

Tyler continues: "Gene Hunt! I thought I was free of him when I woke up from my coma on a Mars from the past but the lizard like locals started dressing up like a strange Camberwick Green version of him and criminals he could beat up. There was some tall skinny man in a brown suit orchestrating this bizarre event - I think he thought he was trying to help. It just sent me mad."

CRAZY COPPER
Alex Drake continues her interpretation of events from Sam's notes: "That's went he went nutty as a squirrel's over filled chamber pot. He started to call one of these big lumbering aliens Annie and trying to seduce it. This apparently didn't go down too well with the locals and he was banished. The tall stranger then returned Sam to his modern day home of Manchester, saying he was only trying to make something up for Sam by giving him a theme holiday."

We leave it to readers to decide if these outrageous claims have any truth. Given the state of todays Britain, with alien spacecraft in London seemingly every other week, we feel the nation needs to be told the truth. Is Sam Tyler the first victim of a new alien sport of hit and run followed by abduction from a hospital bed? Are not even our hospitals safe from aliens now? The News of the Universes will uncover the truth.

TRAGIC END
Just before going to press the sad news of DCI Tyler's death broke. Eye witnesses claim he jumped from the top of his Manchester high rise Police Station. Early reports indicate he hit several unlikely placed awnings on the way down and would have survived had he not fallen into the path of a 1970s classic car rally. He is survived by a mother and a set of 1970s fragrances for men.