A STUDENT has been warned he faces jail when he is sentenced for leading police on a chase through rush-hour traffic in Bradford.

Umar Dabhelia, 20, reached speeds of around 60mph during the brief pursuit, which ended when he wrote off his car by crashing into a street sign.

Judge Jonathan Rose said custody was “essential”, but said he would defer sentencing Dabhelia until June 29 to allow him to finish the second year of a sports science degree in Leeds.

Prosecutor Richard Walters told Bradford Crown Court that officers were on patrol at around 6.20pm on November 27 last year when they saw Dabhelia behind the wheel of a red Toyota Yaris on Brackenbeck Road.

When the officers turned their car around, the defendant sped off onto Spencer Road.

In the chase that followed, which took in busy roads including Clayton Road, Legrams Lane, and Beckside Road, Dabhelia drove straight across junctions and overtook various vehicles at speed while driving on the wrong side of the road, with other drivers forced to swerve to avoid a collision.

After running a set of red lights at more than 60mph the defendant lost control and smashed into a street sign, causing “extensive” damage to his car.

Mr Walters said that as officers approached Dabhelia, he held his hands up saying: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The court was told that cannabis had been recovered from the defendant’s car, but he denied being under the influence of the drug, and was not found to be over the prescribed limit.

John Batchelor, defending, said Dabhelia, of Arncliffe Terrace, Lidget Green, Bradford, had no previous convictions and was fully insured with a clean driving licence.

He said his client, who the court heard is aiming to become a PE teacher, had indulged in a moment of “madness”, but was “not the sort of young man who is seen regularly in these courts.”

He said: “If a young man is allowed to make one mistake in life, let this be it.”

The defendant entered a guilty plea to a charge of dangerous driving in his first appearance before magistrates.

Mr Batchelor argued that Dabhelia’s actions “may” have passed the custody threshold, but Judge Rose said he “completely disagreed.”

“There is no may”, he said. “This case crosses the custody threshold by some margin.”

Addressing Dabhelia, the judge said: “In order to evade police, because some people in your car were smoking cannabis, you drove dangerously. This was not madness, it was not idiotic, this was dangerous, and deliberately so.

“I have no doubt in my mind that a prison sentence is not only warranted and deserved, it is essential.”

Dabhelia was granted bail ahead of his sentencing at the same court at the end of the month.

Judge Rose told him: “You will have no expectations other than that a prison sentence will be passed on that day.”