Man left trail of damaged vehicles

6:55am Saturday 17th May 2008

A man who left a trail of damaged vehicles as he drove off in a stolen JCB-type machine has been jailed for ten months.

Daniel Taylor, 21, was asked to drive the Caterpil-lar Telescopic Handler mac-hine by a group of men he described as "travellers".

Prosecutor Richard Davies told Bradford Crown Court yesterday Taylor set off in the vehicle from a builder's premises in Huddersfield last December. He ended up damaging a bus and three other vehicles before being arrested in a field.

Mr Davies described how a couple watched from their car as the machine ripped the side panels off a bus as it drove by without stopping.

Taylor, of Kenton Way, Holme Wood, Bradford, who claimed he did not realise he had damaged any vehicles, went over a bridge and clipped the wing mirrors off a car and a transit van and wrote off another car.

He told police he had been offered money to drive the machine and did not know it was stolen.

Taylor pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking, driving without due care and attention, handling stolen goods, driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence and driving without insurance.

Barrister Sophie Drake, for Taylor, said he never received the money he was offered and he accepted that what he had done was very foolish and very dangerous.

Taylor was also banned from driving for two years.