A police chase which saw officers in a boat pursue four jet-ski riders on the River Thames has been captured on film.

The chase, which one onlooker described as looking like something out of an action movie, took place at around 6.30pm on Friday. Sightings were reported on social media from Greenwich to Canary Wharf.

Leigh Jackson, 34, watched part of the chase from his Surrey Quays balcony, where he was enjoying a meal with his partner and sister.

“You often do see police boats coming up and down here patrolling, but you don’t often see them engaged in a chase,” he said.

Mr Jackson described seeing the vessels “screeching past” towards central London at first.

“Then 15 minutes later they came back the opposite way, again being chased,” he said.

Despite the first pass of the chase being exciting, Mr Jackson feared an accident could occur involving other river traffic.

Mr Jackson’s girlfriend Kristina Kuznetsova filmed the second half of the chase, showing a Metropolitan Police marine policing unit boat pursuing three jet-skis at speed.

A fourth jet-ski can be seen hanging back.

The Metropolitan police confirmed on Saturday it had responded to reports of jet-skis driving at speed down the River Thames.

In a statement, a spokeswoman said: “The jet skis were approaching central London and the Marine Policing Unit were able to make them change their course.

“Following this the decision was taken to no longer pursue the jet skis for safety reasons.”