AN UNINSURED driver repeatedly rammed a police car, smashed into a parked vehicle and ploughed into a stone wall in a 100mph chase across a built-up area of Bradford.

Tony Spencer roared off in a battered Renault Clio that poured smoke as he undertook a patrol car in a desperate bid to evade the law, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday.

Spencer, who had no driving licence or insurance, was jailed for 14 months and banned from driving for 22 months by Judge Jonathan Rose who told him: “You drove in a manner that ‘dangerous’ barely describes.”

Spencer was spotted by the police on High Street, Wibsey, at 4.10am on June 5. They pursued the Clio, which had three passengers on board, along Halifax Road and on to Church Street, Buttershaw.

Spencer, 25, who told the police he was doing 100mph and had never driven before, twice rammed a police car, injuring an officer, and struck a parked Ford Fiesta, shunting it ten metres along the road, prosecutor Syam Soni said.

He drove on the wrong side of traffic islands and bollards before losing control of the car on a bend, narrowly avoiding flipping it on to its roof. The Clio flattened a road sign and stopped after hitting a stone wall.

Spencer was arrested as he attempted to climb out of the wreckage to flee on foot.

Mr Soni said the car was in a poor state of repair before the pursuit and emitted smoke during the chase. Both it and the police car were badly damaged and a police officer sustained arm and shoulder injuries.

Spencer, a mechanic, of New Crescent, Buttershaw, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving and driving without a licence or insurance.

He had 23 convictions for 25 offences, including aggravated vehicle taking and taking a vehicle without consent. He was on prison licence at the time after being released from a 21 month sentence for house burglary eight weeks before he committed the offence.

Spencer’s barrister, Imran Khan, said his client panicked and acted stupidly when the police boxed him in.

He had never held a licence and told the police he had never driven before. He did not intend to drive that night but his friend, who owned the car, was too drunk to take the wheel.

Although he told the police he was doing 100mph, Spencer thought the Renault Clio would not have topped 60mph with four people in it. Spencer, the father of a young child, had been recalled to prison on licence and had been behind bars for 28 days.

Judge Rose said: “This is a dreadful piece of driving that blights this city and puts at risk not only civilian men and women but police officers.”

Spencer went at “ridiculously high speeds”, the judge added, and it was miraculous no one was seriously injured or killed.

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